My Sister, My Everything
by Michael Callistus
Summary: Harry always knew that his sister was special, and that he had to look out for her. He just didn't realise how much looking after she needed. Rewrite of A Family to Fight for. Harry Twin Sister and Wizard!Dudley
1. Prologue: Doing All Right

My Sister, My Everything

Michael Callistus

Summary: AU, Harry Potter always knew that Vi was special, and that he had to look out for her- after all a man takes care of his family, and he's the only man she has- but it wasn't until some mysterious letters arrived that he realised just how special she was, and how badly she needed looking after. Hufflepuff!Harry and Wizard!Dudley

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, JK Rowling does

Notes: Not long ago I started a fic called _A Family to Fight For_, but became increasingly dissatisfied with it, especially the way I'd written Violet. I'm hoping to do a better job this time around but I didn't hate the fic so some elements may be familiar. Pairing is currently Harry/Susan but there will be only hints of Shipping (they're eleven years old for crying out loud!) and definitely no slash.

Prologue: Doing All Right

"And so the brave knight slew the evil wizard, and his sister the Princess went on to rule the land wisely and justly for many years to come." Mrs Figg finished the story, and looked down a little into Harry's deep green eyes, "What do you think of that Harry?"

Harry said, "The knight went through a lot for the Princess didn't he, Mrs Figg? All those suitors, and the dragon, and the evil wizard and all sorts. Everyone seemed to be out to get them."

Mrs Figg chuckled, "Quite right Harry, he did do an awful lot for her, but the thing to remember is that he could never have done anything else, for the Princess was his sister, and he was her twin brother."

"So he loved her enough to do all that for her?" Harry said.

"Love, and responsibility." Mrs Figg said quietly.

Harry was only five, and he frowned at this, "What's responsibility?"

"The knight and the princess had no parents to look after them," Mrs Figg explained, "and although his sister was the ruler of the whole kingdom, the knight knew that it was his task to take care of her, to watch over and guard her, and defend her from all enemies that threatened his beloved sister. Because that is the true meaning of family."

Something heavy landed on Harry's lap as he looked up at Mrs Figg, and he winced a little at the unexpected weight on his legs; until he looked and saw that it was just Bungle, big, fat, hairy Bungle, the largest of Mrs Figg's collection of cats.

"Hello Bungle." Harry said, scratching the large cat- it was the size of a moderately large dog- under the chin and smiling as it purred, "Sorry Mrs Figg, what's the true meaning of family?"

"Family, Harry," Mrs Figg said, "is sacrifice. Parents make sacrifices for their children, brothers sacrifice for their sisters."

A look of comprehension dawn on Harry's face, "Like me and Vi, you mean? I'm the knight and she's the princess."

"Exactly like that Harry. Violet is a very special young lady, and she will need somebody that she can rely on to look after her. You have to protect her, stand between her and the darkness, her sentinel against the nightmares."

Harry nodded, "Violet is special, isn't she?"

Mrs Figg nodded, "One day Harry, you'll realise just how special." she looked up at the clock on the wall, "And now, I think it's time for you to go."

Harry picked Bungle up off his lap, with some difficulty, and put him down on the floor as he himself got up off the sofa with a sigh of resignation. His aunt and uncle dumped him and his sister on their neighbour like it was a punishment, but the truth was Harry would have much rather lived here than with the Dursleys. She had cake, and biscuits, and even let him and Vi watch a bit of telly sometimes. But most of all, when she talked like that about what he had to do for Violet, she made him feel like he was worth something. The Dursleys seem to try their best to make him and his sister feel like she wasn't worth anything at all.

_But we are worth something,_ Harry thought smugly as he went into the kitchen to get his sister, _Vi's special, and it's a noble thing I do in looking after her. _Someday they'd realise it and all.

_I'm Violet's Knight,_ Harry thought proudly. _And that's something that they can never take away from me._

* * *

Violet shivered in the chill autumn air, "Its starting to get cold again, isn't it Harry?"

Harry nodded, "And a good thing too. I'd rather freeze in the cold than sweat in the heat if you ask me."

"I'd choose summer any day. Glorious summer!" Violet cried as she kicked at some fallen tree leaves which fountained up into the air before falling to earth again in a golden shower.

Harry shrugged, "Please yourself Vi, but if you're cold you can always put another layer on. If you get too hot what are you going to do?"

Violet shivered again, "Try wrapping up warm in these second hand clothes, Dudley's put a hole in this."

Of all the shameful things the Dursleys put them through, Harry reckoned there was no greater shame than his Vi having to wear Dudley's second hand clothes. For crying out loud she was the prettiest girl in the world she ought to be wearing something that reflected that. Or at least fitted her. It was one thing for a natural scruff like him, with his hair everywhere and his broken glasses to complement the look, but Vi wasn't like that and there ought to have been allowances made. Shame on the whole lot of them.

"Are you that cold?" he asked considerately, feeling his sister's hands and finding that they were like blocks of ice. "Here, put this on," Harry took off his own coat and was able to force it over Violet's- one of the advantages of Dudley's old clothes was that they were a lot bigger than their new owners- as he knelt down and began to rub some warmth into Vi's delicate hands.

"Thank you," Violet said quietly as she huddled into her two coats.

Harry looked into his sister's eyes, eyes even greener than Harry's own, and smiled reassuringly. It was his special smile, his smile for his sister, his Violet smile, the smile that said that everything would be all right no matter what because he was there to make them so, "As long as you're okay, that's all that matters."

Then he burst out laughing.

"What?" Violet said.

"If you could see how ridiculous you look in those two coats," Harry laughed. "There's more of them then there is of you."

Violet chuckled, and then began to laugh as well. Then she tore away from him and began to run as fast as she could in the opposite, "Can't catch me, Harry."

"Oh yes I can!" Harry grinned in anticipation as he leapt up and started to chase after her. "You won't get away from me that easily."

And then they were both running, and both laughing aloud for joy, and for that brief moment all their troubles were forgotten. Soon they would have to return to the Dursleys, to their spider infested cupboard beneath the stairs, to Uncle Vernon's temper and Aunt Petunia's icy coldness, to Dudley's temper and his malice. But for Harry James and Violet Lily Potter; right there, right then, life was good.

* * *

A seven year old Violet cowered against the wall of their cupboard as outside the sounds of shouting and banging echoed through the house. She could hear Uncle Vernon's low, loud bellows that shook the walls, Aunt Petunia's grating shrieks of accusation, and occasionally she even caught snatches of Harry's voice, sometimes followed by cries of pain.

At least Dudley wasn't there as well, Violet thought, Dudley always fled to his room when his parents tempers got really bad. But things would have been even worse for Harry if Dudley had been there.

But things sounded bad enough already, worse than Violet could ever remember them, and Violet hated herself all the time that she was listening. Harry was out there, her brother who was always there for her, always listening, always looking out for her, and now he was protecting her again and she didn't even have the guts to join him. She just sat here, cowering and hoping that he'd be all right. She was such a coward.

_Please be all right. Please let Harry be all right._

The noise died down suddenly, and for a moment all was stillness and silence in Number Twelve, Privet Drive, before there was the sound of footsteps moving in the direction of the under the stairs cupboard and the door swung open with a slight creaking sound from the squeaky hinge.

Harry stood in the doorway. His glasses were hanging off one ear, completely smashed on the other side, and his left eye had been blackened. He had a nasty bruise on the right cheek, and he was holding his right arm in a funny way. And still he managed to smile, that special smile that he had just for her. The smile that said that everything would be okay, because Harry was there to make sure of it.

"Hey, Vi," Harry said. "You okay?"

"I'm fine, Harry," Vi said. "I was just scared, that's all."

"Hey, there's nothing to be scared of," Harry sounded pained, as if it was his fault that she was afraid. "I'm here, and I promise that nothing's ever going to happen to you."

"Promise?"

Harry's smile widened, "Cross my heart and hope to die. I'll always be here, for as long as you need me."

"Why?"

Harry frowned, "Because I'm your brother, and that's what brothers do. They look after their sisters."

Violet shyly returned Harry's smile, and went to hug him but he yelped with pain from the arm he was holding onto, "What's the matter?"

"Nothing," Harry said. "Just that, this arms a little bit delicate at the moment, sorry."

Violet avoided his bad arm as she gave him a tight hug, as Harry himself shut the door on the two of them.

"I love you Harry."

"I love you too," Harry whispered, stroking her black hair with his other hand.

* * *

An eight year old Harry led his sister along by one hand as they walked down Magnolia Crescent, with no clear direction in his mind beyond getting as far away from Number Twelve, Privet Drive as he possibly could. He was fed up, and that was the truth. Fed up of the Dursleys, fed up of Dudley and his gang, fed up of watching Vi being treated shamefully and he wasn't going to put up with it any longer. They were getting out of this place, he wasn't quite sure where they were going yet but he'd think of something. Maybe they could get put into foster care or something, certainly he didn't think the Dursleys would be in any great hurry to reclaim their niece and nephew.

"Where are we going, Harry?" Violet asked behind him. She was still sniffing occasionally, the last remnant of the tears that Dudley had reduced her to that had been the last straw for her brother.

"I don't know yet," Harry admitted. "Somewhere better than we were before, I know that much though."

He turned around, and grinned reassuringly at her, "Don't worry, you know I'd never let anything bad happen to you."

Violet smiled and nodded, "I know, I trust you Harry. If you say its going to be okay, then it will."

"Yeah, it will," Harry said, wishing he could believe in himself with the same certainty with which Vi believed in him.

"Now then," they paused at the end of the road. "Which way do you reckon we ought to go?"

A car roared up and came to a screeching handbrake turn right next to them. As Harry and Vi watched, two men climbed out. One was a tall black man in an expertly tailored suit, while the other was an older man with one eye missing and a good deal else besides, and wearing clothes that did not fit him half so well as his partner's.

"Afternoon," the older man said gruffly. "I'm Detective Chief Inspector Moody, and this is Detective Sergeant Shacklebolt, we're with the Rozzers."

"Police," Shacklebolt murmured.

"Right, Police, right," Moody said quickly. "And what do you two think that you're doing running away from home like this?"

"Who said we were running away?" Harry said, hoping that they might have gotten him and his sister confused with two other little kids who had run off.

Shacklebolt knelt down so that he was closer to Harry's level, "We are the police," he said in a slow, deep and reassuring voice. "We have ways of finding out these things."

"We're not going back," Harry said. "I'm not taking Vi back there."

"You'll do as your told Harry, until you know enough to make informed decisions," Moody snapped.

"Alastor," Shacklebolt said calmly, shaking his head in his colleague's direction. "I understand how you must feel, but the world is a very dangerous place for two young children."

"Harry will look after me, just like he always does," Violet said.

"Thanks," Harry said, squeezing his sister's hand.

"I do not doubt your intentions are good, Harry," Shacklebolt said. "But still, I am afraid that I cannot allow you to just run away like this. As policemen, we have a job to do that includes taking you home right now."

"Too right," Moody said. "So get in the car right now, the pair of you."

It was only after the two coppers had seen Harry and Violet both back inside the confinement of Number Twelve that Harry realised that DCI Moody had known he was called Harry before Violet had actually used his name.

* * *

Harry didn't like to imagine what his life would have been like if he hadn't had Violet to take care of. Probably he would have been some kind of emo kid, angsting about how hard his life was without any friends with Dudley and his gang picking on him and stuff, and how nobody would talk to him because they didn't want to get on the wrong side of Dudley. Without Vi, Harry thought as the two of them walked to school, his life would have been a complete mess, empty of purpose or direction. But he did have Vi, and Harry didn't waste time angsting when he could be making sure that she was all right, and showing anyone who upset her just why that wasn't that a good idea. For her sake he ran every morning, and pushed weights that Mrs Figg had given him so he could build up his strength, and when he and Dudley tangled the playing field was a lot more even than it used to be. Sure they still didn't have any friends, but if they couldn't see what a great person Vi was then stuff the lot of them was Harry's attitude. And if people kept away from them at school well, that was partly to do with fear of Dudley, but it also had a fair bit to do with fear of Harry too; everyone knew what had happened when Jimmy Rogers started teasing Violet a bit too much for Harry's liking. Harry had smashed him round the head with a cricket bat. Nobody teased his sister after that.

Harry and Violet took a different route to school than that taken by Dudley. Dudley got driven to the school gates by his parents, Harry and Violet walked. It took longer, but at least they didn't have to suffer Dudley en route.

"Harry?"

"Yes Vi?"

"Do you ever wish that we had other friends?"

"No," Harry said, only half lying. "What do we need friends for? I've got you, and you've got me, and, well, we've got each other haven't we."

"I know," Violet said, hugging his arm, "And I wouldn't change it for anything but, do you never wish that we had other people as well."

Harry shrugged, "I suppose so. Do you?"

"Sometimes." Violet said quietly, and a little wistfully.

"Then I'll find you some friends somehow," Harry said, "I promise."

Violet chuckled, "How are you going to 'find me' some friends, Harry?"

"I don't know." Harry said, "I didn't say I knew how I was going to do it I just promised that I would. And Harry James Potter is a man who keeps his word. Count on it."

"I do," Violet said. "I trust you."

"Good, because you ought to," Harry said, as they reached a set of lights which changed to green before they had to wait too long. Harry led Vi across the road in a quick dash.

"Harry?"

"Mm hmm?"

"Do you ever think about our parents?"

"Erm," the truth was that Harry didn't give a lot of thought to his departed mother and father. It hadn't even been him who had asked how they had died, it had been Vi. He had just never been that curious about it. They were gone, and Violet was his responsibility now, and as far as Harry was concerned that was all there was to it. But Violet not like that answer so he hedged with, "every now and then, yeah."

"I have these dreams some times," Violet said. "And I have the strangest feeling it's about mum and dad."

They were onto a stretch of path far from any roads now, and Harry could focus all his attention upon what his sister was saying, "What kind of dreams?"

"I can hear a woman shouting, and a high voice laughing, and then there's a flash of green light and the woman screams," Violet looked down at the ground for a moment. "Doesn't sound much like a car crash does it?"

"No," Harry said, concealing his concern and- if he was to admit it- fear. Dreams were the one place he couldn't look after Violet, nightmares were the one thing he couldn't protect her from. He hated that uselessness, that inadequacy, he hated that there was any place Vi could go where he couldn't follow her.

"I just wondered, if you ever had any dreams like that."

"No," Harry repeated. Truth was he didn't dream at all very often, it was as if his body compensated for the fact that he insisted on always getting up so early by letting him sleep very deeply to make up for it.

"Oh, okay." Violet said, and he could tell she was a little bit disappointed.

They had reached the gates of the local primary, and Dudley was already hanging around there with his gang clustered around him. Malcolm Sasse, Gordon Bennett and Dennis Skinner were all bigger than Dudley, but they lacked his streak of low and vicious cunning. Piers Polkiss looked like a weasel- or perhaps that should have been a Polecat?- and in many ways was, small and weak but also quick and sly to make up for it. As Harry and Violet approached, they were bullying the younger kids for their tuck money as they came through the gates, making sure to wait until their parents were out of sight until they did anything. Harry could hear them laughing in a crude, stupid manner as they crowed about their successes. His grip on Violet's hand tightened as Piers saw them coming and pointed him out to the rest. Dudley's jaw set. Harry silently clenched his other fist, he had been thinking that it was about time matters came to a head between him and Dudley. God knew they'd been building for long enough.

The gang sauntered over, blocking their way into school.

"Excuse us," Harry said coldly.

A snort from Dudley was the only thing they got by way of reply.

Harry and Violet tried to get past, but the gang kept moving to block their way, beginning to laugh at the Potter twins as they did so.

"What's the matter Potters?" Dudley said. "Don't know which way to go? Having a spaz attack or something?"

Harry let go his grip on Violet's hand, "Get out of the way Dudley."

"Make me, Potter!" Dudley snapped.

Harry snapped too, grabbing Dudley by the scruff of the neck and swinging him round to slam him against the playground wall, "There, I made you, satisfied?"

Harry felt a sharp tug as Malcolm and Gordon wrenched him off Dudley and held him, squirming, while Dudley hit him in the stomach. Harry winced as he doubled over.

"You've been disrespecting me, Potter," Dudley said. "You think you could just go around dissing me and get away with it? When I'm done with you, isn't no one going to diss us again."

"You tell him, Dud," Piers said.

Harry gave a scowling grin, "You can hit me all you want, Dudley, it doesn't change the fact that you're too much of a coward to fight me without your gang to back you up."

Dudley hit him again, punching him hard in the stomach and smiling as Harry yelped in pain, "You won't be so quick to talk when I'm done with you, Potter." He said, "Dennis, hold the other Potter. When I'm gone she's going to get taught a lesson as well."

_Oh no you didn't_. Every protective instinct towards his sister that Harry had honed in himself rose to the fore, lending strength to his arms as he broke free of Malcolm and Dennis' grip shoulder charged Dudley, bowling him over with the force of his onslaught.

"You do not," Harry yelled, driving his knee into Dudley's crotch, "ever," he punched Dudley hard on the nose, breaking it beneath his fist and paying his fat cousin back for several years of broken glasses, "threaten" he punched him twice in the stomach, making Dudley squeal, "my sister again. Got it?"

Harry picked Dudley up off the pavement and pinned him against the wall, "I said got it?"

"Yeah, yeah I got it," Dudley looked terrified, as well he might. Harry was still only half his weight; but that didn't seem to matter. Nothing did, except that he was taking care of Violet.

Harry threw him roughly to the ground, "Get that nose seen to."

Dudley scrambled to his feet, and ran to his gang for comfort and reassurance, when something that Harry had never expected happened. As he reached out towards Piers Polkiss the rat faced boy shoved him back to land on his backside. Dudley looked astonished, while Harry paid attention to the contemptuous expressions on their faces. Dudley leapt up and lunged for Piers in anger, when Dennis and Malcolm barred his way and pushed him back again. Dudley looked, his face a mask of utter confusion, from Harry to his one time friends and then back again, and his eyes began to fill with genuine for the first time in a good many years. With a whimper, he turned and ran home, leaving them all behind.

"I feel almost sorry for him," Violet murmured.

"Don't waste your sympathy," Harry said. "He got what he had coming to him."

Dudley's gang, or rather Dudley's former gang, gave Harry a strange look that he couldn't interpret, and then they sloped through the gates and into school.

"What was that about?" Violet asked.

"I've no idea." Harry said, "Come on, we'll be late otherwise."

To Harry's surprise, and some apprehension, the gang was waiting for him at the end of the school day, loitering by the gates until he and Vi came out, whereupon they closed in on the Potters with speed and alacrity.

Harry did his best to ignore the fact that he was outnumbered four to one and concentrate on putting up a tough front, "What do you want? Come back for another go? Where's Dudley?"

Malcolm spat, "That squealer ain't with us no more." He had a remarkably deep voice for an eight year old.

"You can't be chief unless you're fit to be chief," Piers explained, wiping his nose. "Dud was chief, but he lost so he isn't chief no more."

The gang hesitated for a moment, before Piers nodded toward Harry, "You are."

"Eh?"

"You're the boss now," Piers said. "Your gang. What do you say, chief?"

Harry frowned, "How do I know this isn't a trick?"

Piers shrugged, "So long as you don't let anyone beat you up you'll be fine. Also, if you say no to us we will have to kick the living daylights out of you to keep up our reputation, understand?"

"I see," Harry said. "So, I'm in charge then? What I say goes?"

"Whatever you say," Piers said.

"Okay then," Harry said. "Get out of my face the lot of you, and I'll deal with you in the morning." He watched them leave before he and Violet started for home.

"So, you're the gang leader eh?" Vi said, she seemed to find the whole thing rather amusing.

"Yep," Harry said with a grin. "And there's going to be some changes around here."

* * *

One year on and Harry certainly had made changes. For one thing, he'd had enough of him and Vi being picked on by Dudley's gang that the first thing he'd done with them- aside from change the name to Harry's lads- was put a stop to bullying and turn the gang into a force for good. Mostly, he used the strength of the gang to put a stop to any other bullying that went on in school, nipping incipient gangs in the bud and teaching would be oppressors the cost of trying to throw their weight around. Since Harry no longer allowed the gang to break the rules, he encouraged them to snitch on people who did, building up trust with the teachers to the extent that whenever they did _need_ to break the rules nobody would ever suspect those nice boys who were ever so informative.

And since they were so trusted and so well liked, people soon began giving the gang little errands to run, errands for which they would pay small amounts of money. Washing cars, cutting the grass, delivering letters, they may not have been getting rich but they were getting money in their pockets, and they didn't need a lot because let's face it they were only nine years old. And, because helping people was a far more inclusive activity than menacing, the gang had grown in size from the four lads who had used to follow Dudley. Little Mark Evans, three years younger than Harry and the rest, Jimmy Rogers whom Harry had once hit with a cricket bat for teasing Vi, Sally Anne Perks, Cheryl, Laura, Steve and Robbie, and a large smattering of the nine years old down to the over sixes. Harry couldn't remember some of their names any more.

To most of them, it seemed like Harry was the uncrowned king of the school, but Harry didn't feel that way. He was still only Vi's knight, but if she was a bit more of a princess because of what he'd done, and if things were a little easier for her now, well that was just perfect.

"Harry! I'm going to get you!" Dudley yelled as he sprang at Harry from behind. He had been doing this on and off for about a year now, and as always he was dogpiled by his former comrades in arms before he could actually reach the object of his hatred.

"Give it up, Dudley," Gordon said as he and Dennis wrestled their old leader to a standstill. "It's over, let it go."

"Never!" Dudley said, his blue eyes even more watery than usual, "He took everything from me and I want it back!"

Harry had to admit he was impressed by his cousin's persistence, just as he was impressed by his gang's loyalty in defending him against their old king, but he did his best not to let either feeling show as he kept his voice impassive, "Dudley, Dudley, Dudley, isn't this getting a little old for both of us? Isn't it time to call it quits?"

"This will never end while you still have what belongs to me!" Dudley shrieked.

"This never belonged to you! Nothing belongs to you!" Harry snapped at him. "It wasn't enough that you had everything you could ever want, that you ruled the roost back at Number Twelve," he refused to dignify that place with the name of 'home'. "You had to have more didn't you, you had to grasp for what you didn't deserve and when you reached too far you lost it. Well tough nuggets sunshine, serves you right for being greedy. You played, you lost, and this is Vi's time now. And I'm not having you ruining it."

Harry knelt down, so that he and a squirming Dudley were face to face, "Stop trespassing on my indulgence, or I will be tempted to forget that for all your faults, you are family. Let him up."

Harry walked away without looking back, deliberately showing that he wasn't afraid of anything Dudley might do to him. Vi was waiting for him a little way down the school corridor, an anxious expression on her face.

"Aren't you worried about him?"

"No," Harry said. "He'll try and make things hard for us at home, but I'll sort him. Don't worry it will all be fine. Now, who's waiting on you at lunch today?"

Violet blushed, "Harry, I don't need to waited on I've tried to-"

"Maybe not, but you deserve to be waited on so you're going to be waited on. Now who is it?"

Vi sighed, "Mark Evans."

Harry grinned, "I think he likes you you know."

"I'm nine, and he's six!"

"Even so," Harry said, laughing as the two of them walked to their first lesson.

Dudley neutered, Vi treated as she deserved, and school established as a safe haven for her from the malice of the Dursleys. They were doing all right, Harry reckoned. Yep, they were doing all right.


	2. Girl Who Lived

Chapter 2: The Girl Who Lived

"They stuff people's heads down the toilet first day at Stonewall," Dudley sneered. "Want to come and practice, Harry?"

Harry raised his eyebrows, he would have thought Dudley would have learnt better than to tread on ground like this by now, "Sure I would Dudley. Just remember to take your top off first to stop it getting wet."

Dudley flushed, his fists clenching with anger.

"And another thing," Harry said sharply. "If I hear you've been giving Piers a hard time while he's on his own there'll be trouble come the Christmas holiday, got it?"

Dudley growled, "Think you're such a big man don't you Harry?"

"No bigger than you thought you were back in your day," Harry said. "And this is Vi's day now, and you'd best remember that."

Dudley spat on the living room carpet.

"Don't let your mother catch you doing that," Harry said as Dudley stomped up the stairs to his room.

Harry and Vi temporarily had the living room to themselves, and thus they had occupied the sofa by _coup de main_ until Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia came to evict them. Vi snuggled up a little closer to her brother.

"Are you worried Harry? About Stonewall? Do you think it's true what Dudley said?"

Harry looked at his sister, with her black hair in twin ponytails, her eyes the same deep green as his, and a much longer and the scar across her forehead. People said his scar looked like a lightning bolt, but to Harry himself it was Vi's long scar that truly arced across her forehead like a thunderbolt from the blue, "I think Dudley's bitter and full of it and we shouldn't pay any attention to him. Besides, do you honestly think I'd let anybody stuff your head down the bog?"

"No, but-"

"Listen, if anyone tries anything on with you then I'll shove _their_ heads down the loo, and I shan't necessarily flush it first either," Harry smiled encouragingly. "Trust me, have I ever let anything happen to you?"

"No," Vi smiled. "You take care of me Harry."

"You bet I do. Believe me we'll be better off at the local comprehensive with people just like us. What would you want to go to Smeltings for. Smeltings," Harry's lip curled derisively. "Posh public school for people with no chins and too much money."

"What about Piers?"

Harry hesitated, "Exception that proves the rule. Things would be easier if he was there to look after the other three but you can't have everything can you?" Gordon, Malcolm and Dennis were all fine in a scrap, but they lacked the intelligence and imagination that made Piers an excellent number two. Harry just hoped Dudley wouldn't take revenge while they were alone at Smeltings, or else take the opportunity to get his claws in Piers again.

"Look," Harry said. "Whatever happens we'll have each other won't we? And for the rest we'll just have to take what comes. We'll do all right won't we?"

Vi grinned, "We'll do all right, Harry. Just like we always do."

* * *

A few days later, and Harry was watching Dudley apprehensively as he sat down at the breakfast table. The cause of this sudden nervousness around his cousin was due entirely to the fact that Dudley had the day before acquired a big stick as part of his uniform for Smeltings. Not withstanding the fact that if requiring children to carry blunt instruments wasn't the biggest indictment of the public school system then what was; or the fact that it was the only part of Dudley's uniform that didn't make him look a right one, Harry was mainly concerned at the way he was eyeing his Smelting's stick, and fondling it like Gollum's precious. He undoubtedly meant to hit someone with it, and it didn't take the brains of Uncle Vernon to work out who.

Harry wrinkled his nose as he looked at the grey mass that was apparently his and Vi's uniforms for Stonewall High. Apparently Aunt Petunia had forgotten to mention that they were going to a school for baby elephants. It took a great deal of self restrain not to say this out loud.

Vi came in, yawning a little, and Dudley smirked as he raised his stick and prepared to swing it at her. Harry started towards his overweight cousin, but even he didn't know if he could make it in time. If only there was some way he could move faster.

_Crack!_

Harry found himself standing in the path of Dudley's Smelting stick, holding it an inch away from his face but more importantly keeping it well away from his sister.

His sister who was staring at him with her mouth open.

"What?" he said.

She pointed at where he had been, "One moment you where there, and the next second you were standing here. It was like you, teleported or something."

Harry admitted it was a bit weird how he'd moved so fast, let alone that cracking sound, but he didn't know how he'd done and frankly he didn't much care. He'd kept Vi out of harms way, that was the important thing.

"What have you done now?" Obviously Aunt Petunia didn't agree, as he could tell by the tone of her voice.

"Nothing," Harry said.

"Don't you take that tone with me you man," Petunia snapped. "I know that you've been at it again haven't you, now I want to know how you did it?"

"What's going on Petunia," Uncle Vernon lumbered in. "Has that boy been up to any of his usual tricks again?"

Aunt Petunia's answer was forestalled by the sound of the letterbox rattling.

"Get the post Dudley," Uncle Vernon said.

"Make Harry get it,"

"What, so you can hit my sister while my back is turned?" Harry said acidly.

"Don't talk back," Vernon snapped, slapping Harry across the head. "Just go and do as you're told."

"To hear is to obey," Harry said, heading out of the kitchen before Uncle Vernon could give him a kick to send his nephew on his way. Harry trotted out into the hallway and picked up the letters lying on the doormat. Bank statement, gas bill, phone bill, Society magazine that Aunt Petunia subscribed to, and three hand written letters with fancy crests where the stamp should have gone.

_Ms Violet Potter,_

_The Cupboard Under the Stairs,_

_4 Privet Drive,_

_Little Whinging,_

_Surrey_

_Mr Harry Potter,_

_The Cupboard Under the Stairs,_

_4 Privet Drive,_

_Little Whinging,_

_Surrey_

_Mr Dudley Dursley,_

_The Second Largest Bedroom,_

_4 Privet Drive,_

_Little Whinging,_

_Surrey_

There were more things strange about these letters than Harry knew where to start. Firstly, who wrote hand written letters anymore? Second, how had they gotten delivered without stamps? Third, who would want to write to Vi, him and Dudley? Fourth, how in the name of God did they know where he and Vi slept? And did somebody who obviously had some means of keeping check on them mean them good or harm?

"Hurry up boy, what are you doing out there?"

Harry jumped, he didn't have time to stand here like this, he'd attract unwanted attention. One thing was certain, he didn't want the Dursleys to find out about these letters. Not Dudley's, it didn't matter what they did with that one, but his and Vi's, they weren't the Durlseys business. This was something for family; he could feel it in his bones.

Harry slipped the two hand written letters to a different hand from the rest of the post, and offered up silent thanks to god that Vi had left the cupboard door open ajar. As Harry walked back down the hall he carefully and, he hoped, surreptitiously slipped his and Vi's letters into the cupboard before walking back into the kitchen and placing the mail on the table.

Uncle Vernon made grunting noises as he sorted the post, but when he came to Dudley's letter he paled visibly and was barely able to squeak out his wife's name to summon her to see what was going on.

"Oh good heavens," Petunia looked as though she might faint at any moment. "It can't be true, it just can't. Not our little Diddykins its not possible. How did it happen? And why is it him and not,"

"Not what?" Dudley said, looking from his mother to his father. "What's going on?"

"Quiet Dudley," Vernon said, eyeing Harry suspiciously. "You, boy, where are your letters?"

Harry affected an expression of angelic innocence, "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Don't give me that, if Dudley's got one then you two must have too," Vernon said. "Now tell me where they are?"

"I don't know what you mean," Harry said.

"Oh really?" Uncle Vernon grimaced like a madman as he grabbed hold of Violet's hand and began to pull on her little finger. "Still don't know anything?"

"What are you doing? Let go of her?"

"I'm going to break her fingers unless you tell me where you put those letters."

"You bastard."

"Sticks and stones boy, the letters!"

"They're in the bloody cupboard," Harry yelled, as Vi began to screw her face up in pain. "I'll get them all right?"

"Yes, and then you can get out, all of you. You two Dudley."

"Now wait a minute-" Dudley was cut off as his own father bodily threw him out of the kitchen, and as soon as he had Harry and Vi's letters Vernon slammed the kitchen door in their faces. Dudley tried to listen at the keyhole before Harry forced him down, sitting on him for good measure, while Vi listened at the keyhole and Harry pressed his ear to the crack in the door and tried to hear what was being said.

"After everything we tried, everything we swore, none of its worked Vernon, and they've got Dudley too. Vernon, what do we do?"

"Nothing. We just refuse to accept the letters, and eventually they'll give up. Their feckless, these people, they'll give up after a while. You'll see."

"Have you two given me a disease?" Dudley asked, something Harry did not consider it worth his time to deign with a reply.

* * *

Uncle Vernon's resolve to withstand the siege led to a week of increasing paranoia and almost comical desperation on the part of the elder Dursleys. The first day Harry gone out to do his weekend chores- he washed half the cars on Privet Drive, and did a lot of gardening that earned a fair bit of pocket money for him and his sister, he had noticed a lot of owls lurking around the road. Henceforth he had been forbidden to leave the house. Uncle Vernon had nailed up practically every crevice in the house in his increasingly desperate bids to stop the rising tide of letters, while Harry's determination to get a letter for Violet had led him staying awake all night camped out beneath the letter box (Uncle Vernon, apparently planning exactly the same thing, had caught him at it and sent him to bed), making an enormous mess in the kitchen at the same time the letters arrived to serve as a distraction (Aunt Petunia had guessed what he was up to and waited until after the letters had all been disposed of to tell him off and make him clean it up), he had even considered hospitalising Dudley in order to get the Dursleys out of the house, but that would have been a step too far even for him.

The truth was, Harry was at its wits end. He had taken the letters as a personal challenge, and abject failure was beginning to get to him.

"Its all right Harry," Violet rubbed his arm as she attempted to make him feel better. "They probably weren't that important anyway."

"You don't believe that," Harry said. "I know you don't."

"Maybe, but you were the one who said we couldn't have everything."

"I don't want everything," Harry said. "I just, I know that this is important. I can feel it. We need to get our hands on one of those letters. We have to, somehow."

_Crack!_

Harry shot up to his feet, banging his head on the low hanging ceiling of the cupboard in the process, "That sound. I know that sound, that happened before when I moved really fast, but I haven't done anything so it must mean something," he rubbed at head as he took Violet's hand. "Come on, lets go and see what it is."

"Boy! What have you done this time!"

"Ah, I suppose you must be Mr Vernon Dursleys. A pleasure to meet you my dear fellow."

Harry froze, that was a voice Harry had never heard before. Smooth, well educated, clever sounding, but at the same time trustworthy as well. He couldn't think ill of the owner of this voice, it was just impossible to consider somehow.

"Who the devil are you, how did you get in here?"

"Forgive the intrustion, I would have used the door but you appear to have boarded it shut. I am sure that you had your reasons. Ah, and this must be Petunia, how delightful."

"Good lord…"

"Oh not at all, only Albus Dumbledore. We have corresponded, of course. And, may I ask, where are the children?"

"We're here," Harry said, pushing open the cupboard door and emerging into the hallway with Violet close behind. "Two of us anyway."

Albus Dumbledore, who was easily the most extravagantly dressed man that Harry had ever seen, seemed to take a sharp breath at the sight of the Potters, and his bright eyes shone like blue lights.

"Violet Lily and Harry James Potter, of course. Delighted to meet you my dear children, absolutely delighted. Now then, would somebody care to call Dudley?"

Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia both seemed too stunned to move so Harry obliged, "Dudley, get down here, there's a strange bloke just turned up wants to have a word."

It was hard to tell because of his long white beard, but Harry got the distinct impression that Albus Dumbledore was smiling.

Dudley came down the stairs, looking confused and distinctly nervous.

"Ah, good," Dumbledore said. "Now that we are all here, perhaps we could go into the sitting room and discuss these matters in comfort?"

Dumbledore did not wait for a reply, but swept magisterially into the living room, leaving everyone else trailing in his wake.

Violet looked at Harry, "Who do you think he is?"

Harry shrugged, "Only one way to find out isn't there?"

They were the first to follow Dumbledore in, with the Dursleys following them with considerably more reluctance.

"Now this is better," Dumbledore said contentedly. "Now before we go any further I assume that, since you have been destroying the letters that you have ignored my earlier request to treat Violet and Harry as your own children, all the while keeping them informed of their true heritage and nature?"

"Yes, damn it all!" Uncle Vernon snapped. "When we took them in we swore we'd stamp that nonsense out of them once and for all. And we aren't having Dudley infected with it either so if that's all you have to say you might as well-"

"You know I have spent a great many years fighting for muggle rights against the opinions of some of my less progressively minded fellows, but there are times when I do wonder what it was all for," Dumbledore cut him off coldly. "And when I look at you, Mr Dursleys, I find myself having trouble answering that question."

"Erm, excuse me, Mr Dumbledore?" Violet said timidly.

"Professor Dumbledore, my dear."

"Oh, sorry."

"Quite all right," Dumbledore said. "You were saying?"

"Yes, I was just going to ask you, what are Muggles?"

"Ah," Dumbledore said. "Yes, difficulties like these were why I decided it was best if I come myself. Now what I am about to tell you may seem fantastic, even ridiculous, but I want you to listen with an open mind, do you understand?"

Violet nodded and Harry, who thought that Dumbledore was far more interested in his sister than in him and thought it was about time somebody was, followed suit. Without further ado Dumbledore took out a, well, a stick of wood and waved it in the air. Instantly the Dursley's coffee table burst into flames, and Aunt Petunia shrieked in terror.

Dumbledore waved his stick again, and the flames disappeared. There seemed to be no damage to the coffee table.

"Awesome!" Dudley said.

"Cor," Harry murmured.

"How did you do that?" Violet asked, wide eyed with fascination.

"By magic," Dumbledore said simply. "There is a world of magic, a world of witches and wizards, dragons and centaurs, prophecies and broomsticks, existing unseen and unknown across the length and breadth of this country and, indeed, the world. Every year, children of the age of eleven come into the full potential of their magic. Some come from old and established magical families, others are the first manifestations of magical power in their line."

"Like us, you mean," Harry said.

"Actually no," Dumbledore said. "This is where I am afraid your Aunt owes you a great debt. Her sister, your mother Lily, was herself an extremely talented witch, and your father James was a wizard of the most distinguished lineage. Your cousin Dudley, it is true, does come of Muggles- in long delayed answer to your question Violet a muggle is the wizarding term for a person who has no magic- but even has wizarding relatives in his immediate family."

"You knew about this," Harry said. "You knew the whole time and you never said a word to Vi, god almighty."

"Its all right Harry," Violet said quietly.

"No it is not all right, they've been keeping secrets from you and I want to know-"

"Harry," Violet said sharply, indicating Professor Dumbledore.

"Oh, right," Harry flushed slightly. "Beg pardon."

"No harm done, Harry," Dumbledore said happily.

"So, all three of us, we all have magic?" Violet said.

"Indeed you do, and come September you will all begin attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where you will learn to master your talents."

"Does Dudley have to come to?" Harry asked.

Dumbledore chuckled, "I am afraid so, Harry, untamed magic is a danger to its possessor and to others around him."

"You mean, I might hurt mum and dad?" Dudley paled.

"Unless you come to Hogwarts, then quite possibly," Dumbledore said. "I speak, sad to say, from the bitterest experience. Not to mention the fact that the Ministry of Magic would not approve of an untrained wizard running wild, completely unschooled. Now, I will shortly be taking Violet, Harry and Dudley to Diagon Alley in London where they may purchase the equipment that they need for the coming year at Hogwarts, but before I do so there is one more item that must be cleared up before they enter the wizarding world. How, Petunia, did you explain away James and Lily's deaths to them?"

"They said it was a car crash," Violet said quietly.

"Indeed," Dumbledore said disapprovingly. "The truth, I am afraid, may be harder to bear. Your parents were murdered, by an evil wizard named Lord Voldemort. Then, when he attempted to turn his deadly arts upon you, Violet, he was not only thwarted in his intent to kill you but was himself destroyed in the process. Whether he is gone forever cannot be with any certainty ascertained, but you should be aware that at Hogwarts, and in the whole of the Wizarding world, you will be feted as a hero of our world: the Girl Who Lived, the only person known to have survived Voldemort's deadly curse."

Harry grinned, and put one arm around Vi's shoulder, "I always knew that you were special, and now I've got proof."

"And now," Dumbledore said, rising to his feet. "I think it is high time that you stepped beyond the portal of the mundane and answered the clarion call of destiny."


	3. Sunshine and Rainbows

_Author's Note: A very short chapter, because I've no appetite to just copy and paste from the canon and also because the next chapter is very long to compensate._

* * *

Chapter 3: Sunshine and Rainbows

Dudley scowled as Dumbledore led the three children down the street to a more secluded part of Magnolia Crescent, while Violet was looking around curiously for signs of how they would get to this 'Diagon Alley'. Harry just couldn't stop grinning. All his life he'd known that Vi was special, and now he had proof. A new chapter of their lives was beginning, and life would be flowing with milk and honey from now on he just knew it.

"Um, Professor Dumbledore," Violet said. "Where is Diagon Alley?"

"In London, my dear," Dumbledore said absently, looking around for signs that they were being watched. "Yes, this looks like an ideal spot."

Vi frowned, "But, Professor, how are we-"

"It will be better for you to see than to be told, so I must ask you to wonder on, till truth make all things plain, for a few moments longer Violet," Dumbledore said, drawing his wand and holding it out in front of him almost like he was thumbing for a lift.

And it turned out that was exactly what he was doing, as there was a loud bang like a gunshot and a triple decker bus, painted in a ghastly shade of overdone purple, appeared out of nowhere to screech to a halt on the corner of Magnolia crescent. A door at the back opened and a spotty young man in a purple suit leapt out of the bus and began to speak.

"Good morning, and welcome aboard the Knight Bus, transport for the stranded Witch or Wizard. I am your conductor, Stan Shunpike, please step on board," Stan's bored, routine voice stuttered to a halt as he caught sight of Dumbledore and when he spoke again he sounded a good deal more animated to say the least, "Blimmin' 'eck, it isn't Albus Dumbledore?"

Dumbledore smiled benevolently, "It is indeed, good morning Stanley, I trust that I find you well."

Stan nodded slightly, like a meercat bobbing its head, before yelling, "Here, Ern, we've got Albus Dumbledore out here!"

"Yeah, right, pull the other one why don't you?" Ern replied hoarsely from the cab at the front.

"You calling me a liar? It's 'im, come out here and see for yourself!"

"Perhaps that might wait until after I have purchased the tickets?" Dumbledore said gently.

"Oh, yeah right, 'scuse me," Stan said.

"Four for Diagon Alley please," Dumbledore said.

"Right, that's two galleons ten sickles," Stan said, and Dumbledore handed over a pair of gold coins the size of bottlecaps and a handful of smaller, silver coins.

"We'll just drop Madam Marshbanks off and then it'll be you, all right?" Stan said as they got on.

"Oh, admirably I should think," Dumbledore said, as he led them on.

* * *

There weren't too many people on the Knight Bus, but the people there were couldn't seem to stop staring at Vi, who seemed at a loss for what to do about all the attention and was soon blushing like nobody's business under all the gazes of the passengers.

"Are you embarrassed?" Harry said.

"Of course I am, everybody's staring at me," Vi hissed.

"Well be proud of it, you've nothing to be ashamed of. You're a heroine."

"I haven't done anything heroic," Violet said.

"I heard that," Dudley said.

Harry ignored that remark but promised himself there would be a reckoning later, "Look at the talentless no marks you see on the telly all day, you think they did anything to deserve being rich and famous? Listen, you've got a darned sight better claim to fame than being able to kick a ball around a pitch, or because you're a Geordie who gets on well with his Geordie friend."

"Hey I like them!" Dudley said.

"More fool you then," Harry snapped. "Violet, God knows we haven't always had it easy, so what's the harm in soaking up the attention now the boot's on the other foot. Come on, give them a smile. Give them a speech."

"I'm not making a speech!"

"I think Harry that you're sister is right," Dumbledore said. "You don't want to appear to have an overinflated opinion of yourself after all."

"Too late for that."

"Shut your cake hole Dudley."

The ride to the Leaky Cauldron didn't take too long, and soon the bus drew up outside a rather dingy looking London pub. The sign was dirty, and barely readable, the windows were boarded up, and it didn't seem to be attracting any passing trade whatsoever from the people on the street. Overall, Harry didn't consider it a very impressive place to be the gateway to another world.

Dumbledore seemed to be able to read what he was thinking, because he chuckled into his white beard, "We of the wizarding world like to keep our existence inconspicuous, that is why the Leaky Cauldron is enchanted so that the Muggles cannot see it."

"Professor?" Violet said. "Why do the wizards, why do we keep ourselves separate? I mean why cut ourselves off from ordinary people? Why not just tell them about it?"

"A number of reasons," Dumbledore said. "Largely entwined with our safety and those of the Muggles. I cannot go into all the details of our history- that is for Professor Binns to elaborate once you are at Hogwarts, and I have no wish to trespass upon the territory of my staff- but suffice to say that on occasions when we have attempted to reveal ourselves we have been persecuted by the Muggles, while integration between Wizard and Muggle has always led to Muggles becoming caught in the crossfire of wizarding disputes, often with tragic consequences. On the whole, it is considered best that we go our separate ways. Two nations, each ignorant of one another's habits and customs, divided by gulfs of culture, history, identity, having nothing in common save for geography and language. Such a policy has benefited us both for many years. And now, we really must be going. We cannot delay this excellent bus any longer."

In Harry's memory, most of that Diagon Alley visit passed in a blur: the robe shop, the wandmaker, the pub full of people who just fawned over Vi like she was their goddess or something. He sort of remembered the nervous teacher with the turban, because he got a bit of a headache around his scar when he met the man, but that was one of the few distinct things in his mind. That, and the creepy way that Mr Ollivander behaved.

But most of what Harry remembered was the way everybody reacted to his sister. They remembered her, and made much of her, and treated her like the Princess returned to her Kingdom after a long exile. And her people loved her still. Everything was as it should be.

And Harry, who had waited all his short life to see Vi treated like this, could only lean back and smile in the knowledge that at long last all was right with the world.

All was well, and life would be sunshine and rainbows from now on.

He could feel it.


	4. Sibling Duties

Chapter 4: Sibling Duties

"Harry?" Violet snuggled up closer to her (marginally) older brother, laying her black-haired head against his shoulder as he put one arm around her. "Are you worried?"

Harry leaned his head sideways, so that it was resting on top of Vi's head even as she was resting on his shoulder. He closed his bottle green eyes for a moment- it was so dark in the cupboard and so cluttered with all their Hogwarts stuff he couldn't see anything even with his eyes open. Hogwarts. One more day and they would be there. One more day and free of the Dursleys. One more day and Vi would be going somewhere where she could truly shine. One more day, and everything would be all right.

Of course there was the awkward fact that Dudley was going too, and had a whole other room to accommodate all his stuff while he waited, the jammy git, but Harry could sort him.

At least he wouldn't be able to terrorise Piers at Smeltings any more. Good for Piers any road.

No, Harry could honestly say he felt no cause for worry. Why worry, when everything was turning out so well.

"What would I be worried about?"

"You were there," Vi said plaintively. "Everyone expects such great things of me, and I don't have a clue where to begin. I'm famous, and I can't even remember what it is that I'm famous for. How can that not worry you?"

"Because its brilliant?" Harry said. He and Vi had both loved every minute in Diagon Alley, but for very different reasons. Vi had loved the place itself, the energy, the atmosphere of it that she had eagerly drank up. Harry had loved the adulation that had been showered upon his sister. When the crowd had descended on her in the Leaky Cauldron Harry had merely crossed his arms and let a self satisfied grin settle on his face, glad that at last people were seeing the same special qualities in his sister that he witnessed each day. After a moment he had noticed Professor Dumbledore looking amused too, apparently the headmaster of Hogwarts had so much trouble finding people who were more famous than him he liked to enjoy it while it lasted. "Seriously, how can you expect me not to enjoy this? I always knew that you were special Vi. Or do you want me to call you the Girl Who Lived?"

"Don't," Vi said. "I'm just so afraid that…afraid I'll be a disappointment to everyone. After all that, after what Mr Ollivander said, I'm so afraid I'll just be an enormous let down."

"You won't," Harry said with absolute certainty.

Vi paused, "How do you know?"

"Because I know you first of all," Harry said. "And I knew that you were special long before Professor Dumbledore spelled it out for me. And second, I know that everything is going to be just fine because we're a family. Because I've got you, and you've got me, and we catch each other when we fall down, and together there isn't anything that we aren't capable of."

"Really?"

"Yeah, really," Harry said. "Together we can do anything. We're like the Winchesters."

Vi giggled, "How do you always manage to be so reassuring Harry?"

"It's a brother thing," Harry said.

Another pause, another silence that dragged on before Vi said, "What's going to happen to the gang?"

"I've left Piers in charge till I come back, in the summer at the latest. He'll keep things going," Piers was not the strongest member of the gang, but he was the smartest, and Harry reckoned he was probably the best man for the job. "You know its weird, but Sally's going off somewhere as well. Nobody knows where. I suppose we'll never find out now."

"Harry?"

"Yeah?"

"We're going to stick together when we get to Hogwarts aren't we?"

"Course we are," Harry said. "Don't worry Vi, I'm not going to let anything split us apart."

* * *

King' Cross Station, the bustling hub of the London Railway network. The ancient train station heaved with crowds of people: commuters, holiday makers, day trippers, the works. The air was thick with tannoy messages, each preceded by those annoying bongs. Dozy workers slept in the information and ticket booths, and Train Managers patrolled the platforms. And everywhere was the sound of the trains themselves moving in and out as they sped to every different part of the country imaginable.

Two people were like islands in the midst of all this sea of chaos. A boy and a girl, each hefting trolleys loaded with cases and other more exotic items. The boy, short but gangly for his age, with unruly black hair and bottle green eyes, was leaning dejectedly on the handles of his trolley while his snowy owl peered at him intently. His companion, a girl slightly smaller than he was, with the same colour hair tied in twin ponytails with cherry clasps and the same green eyes exactly, was looking only slightly less dejected, while on top of her luggage a big eagle owl slept with its head tucked under one wing.

"You know I'm beginning to think that this is some sort of test," Violet said, looking once more at the space between platforms nine and ten. "After all, Professor Dumbledore could have told us how to get to the platform, but he didn't, so he obviously wanted us to find out for ourselves."

"Or perhaps he's just an old man who's memory is going on the blink," Harry said. "I mean how are we supposed to find out for ourselves, it's ridiculous."

He spat at the injustice of it all. The Hogwarts Express would be leaving soon and his sister, the Girl Who Lived, would not be on it. It was an injustice, a scandal, and a poor showing on his part. After all, what sort of a brother was he who couldn't even get his sister on a train?

His one consolation in all of this was that he was not sharing the fate of the Dursleys, who were bustling up and down asking every official in sight, and more than a few bystanders, to how get to Platform Nine and Three Quarters and were looking like right idiots in the process. Ah well, every cloud.

"Harry," Violet tugged furiously on his sleeve. "I've just heard those people over there talking about Muggles!"

Harry turned in the direction Vi was pointing to see a gaggle of redheads, most of them boys carrying stacks of luggage, led by a plump but formidable looking matriarch leading a young girl by the hand.

Harry nodded, "Its worth a go I suppose." Anything was, at this late stage.

With Harry following, Violet made her way gingerly towards the red-headed clan and gingerly cleared her throat, "Um, excuse me, I wonder if you could help…"

The matriarch, who was scrubbing at the nose of the youngest of the boys while he furiously tried to wriggle free, turned to face the Potters with her son still held in a headlock, "Hogwarts are you? Want to know how to get onto the platform?"

Violet nodded nervously, "Yes, please. I'm sorry for any trouble but-"

"Oh there's no need to apologise dear, everyone gets nervous the first time," the plump looking woman exclaimed. "Ron's new too."

Ron, who was taller than Harry but almost as gangly and scrawny, looked into Violet's eyes, went red as a tomato before moving swiftly on to beetroot purple, and redoubled his efforts to be free of his mother's grasp, "Ahh, Mum, gerroff!" He got free, and staggered a couple of steps away while attempting to put on a nonchalant air. He smiled gingerly in Vi's direction and gave a nervous little wave with his fingers.

"Nicely played, ickle Ronnie," said a stockily built red-haired boy, not bothering in the least to disguise his amusement.

"Yeah," said another, his identical twin in every respect. "Smooth Ronniekins, real cool."

"Hush, Fred," his mother said.

"He's Fred."

"Shush, George."

"Just kidding, I am Fred," the one who had called himself Fred, but who might just as easily have been George for all Harry knew, gave him a wink and a quick grin. "Isn't being one of twins just brilliant? Even our own mother doesn't know us. Still, you don't have to worry about that what with the whole boy-girl thing going on."

"Sometimes I wish I was a girl," George said with a wistful sigh.

"Really?" Fred took his twin by the hands and said in a high flown tone of voice. "Why, Georgina, I'd never realised until now but, you're beautiful."

"Why of course I am! Hold me darling," George said in a mock simper. Harry battled vainly to keep a straight face as the twins assumed a swooning 'Hollywood kiss' posture.

"That's enough from the pair of you," their mother snapped, before turning her attention back to Violet. "Now just walk straight towards the barrier, run if it makes you feel better, and you'll reach the platform. Percy will show you how its done."

These red-headed boys seemed to come in two varieties: tall and gangling like Ron, or short and stocky like the twins. Percy was of the former type, only much taller than Ron or his mother, and on hearing her words he puffed himself up like some sort of bird defending its territory, and pushing his trolley before him strutted straight towards the barrier between the two platforms, until he vanished through it.

"My god," Harry murmured. "So that's how it works?"

The Twins went next, disappearing in exactly the same way as Percy.

"Now you dear, quickly before Ron," the plump woman nodded to Violet, gesturing toward the barrier with her head.

Harry went first, just to make sure that it was safe. He was running and roaring at the top of his voice by the time he reached the barrier, and attracting some very strange looks while he was at it, but none of that mattered because the moment before he would have hit the thing he felt a strange viscous sensation and had emerged onto a new platform that definitely hadn't been there a second earlier.

But then, there hadn't been a solid brick wall behind him a second earlier either.

Platform Nine and Three Quarters, the sign hanging from the wall said.

"So that is how it works," Harry said. "Interesting."

He made some space, and had only to wait a couple of seconds before Vi joined him, his sister's face lit up in a bright smile that warmed.

"So then," she said. "We made it after all?"

"Yep," Harry said, giving Vi a hug. "We're on our way, our Vi, we are on our way."

All around them children and adults milled around, while an old steam engine named the Hogwarts Express waited patiently at the platform. As Harry cleared a way through the press for his sister, snatches of conversation floated to reach his ears.

"Gran, I've lost Trevor again."

"Oh Neville, help him find it would you Rebecca."

"I swear, Neville-"

"Come on Lee, show us what's in the box."

"Later!"

"I trust that you will remember your purpose, Lucinda?"

"Want some help?" Fred and George, or perhaps it was George and Fred it was so hard to tell, appeared in front of the Potter twins as Harry struggled to carry two heavy lots of luggage onto the train.

"Yeah, cheers," Harry said, gratefully accepting the helping hands as the twins helped haul their stuff into an empty compartment.

"Thank you, very much," Vi said, smiling prettily. "I was so worried about coming here but, if everyone is as nice as you I think everything might be all right after all."

"Don't go on too much you'll have us blushing," Fred, or maybe George, said.

"Hey, hang on," George, or possibly Fred, was squinting at Violet's forehead. "That isn't? It can't be? You're not?"

Violet frowned, "I'm not who?"

"Violet Potter!" they chorused.

"Um, yes, I am," she said tentatively.

The twins grinned, "Awesome."

"Fred Weasley," Fred stuck out his hand to Vi. "This is my brother George."

"Isn't it the other way around?" Violet asked, shaking Fred's hand.

The twins exchanged glances, "She's a sharp one isn't she. Quite right, I was pulling your leg I'm really George."

"Pleased to meet you," Violet said. "This is my brother, Harry."

"All right," Harry said.

"Fred! George, where are you?" they could hear Mrs Weasley calling from outside the train.

"Coming mum, got to go," Fred said as the twins left.

Harry waited until they were gone and then leapt back in mock surprise, "Oh my god!"

"What?" Vi said, looking around.

"Violet Potter, the Girl Who Lived!"

"Oh, give over," Vi said, thumping him playfully on the arm. "Do you think a lot of people a lot of people are going to be like this?"

"I hope so, you deserve it."

"Yes, but I don't want it," Violet said. "Why can't they just let me be normal?"

Harry's face scrunched up in an expression of absolute disbelief, "Vi, we were normal for eleven years and in case you'd forgotten, it stank. Now's your chance to try being extraordinary for a change."

Violet made a noise of noncommittal. Meanwhile, outside, Harry could dimly hear the Weasleys making their goodbyes to one another, but he was too preoccupied talking to his sister to pay too much attention to what they were saying. Then he head Mrs Weasley calling goodbye, heard the Hogwarts Express whistle blow, and felt the floor lurch under his feet as the train started to move off.

"Erm," Ron stood in the doorway of the compartment, the twins standing beside him. "You don't mind, do you? Everywhere else is full?"

"Of course not, sit down," Vi said brightly.

"Thanks," Ron seemed unwilling to meet Violet's gaze, something the twins appeared to find amusing as they helped him load his stuff into the overhead racks.

"See you later ickle Ronniekins," Fred said brightly. "We're off now, we hear Lee's got a tarantula."

They disappeared, shutting the compartment door behind them.

Ron sat down opposite Violet and Harry, and seemed to be looking everywhere but at Violet's face. He didn't say anything either, meanwhile the silence acquired the thickness and consistency of brie cheese. It was only after they had cleared London and were out into the countryside that Ron appeared to find the courage to blurt out, "Is it true that you've got a scar like a thunderbolt on your forehead?"

Violet chuckled, and cleared some of her dark hair away to reveal a scar like a thunderbolt carving its way across the top of her head.

"Wicked," Ron murmured. And from that moment on he had no trouble at all talking.

Harry sat back and closed his eyes, well satisfied with what he observed going on. Ron was hanging off of Vi's every word, hearing about her life with the Dursleys, seemingly fascinated with 'Muggles' and everything about them. Violet for her part was a good listener, sympathetic to being the youngest boy in a large family of overachievers. And when the food trolley came round, and Ron had tried to deny that he needed charity from the Potters, Violet had replied that she hadn't had any money either until recently and was glad not only to be able to spend it, but to have somebody to spend it on. Ron seemed pleased with the answer. But what pleased Harry was not just the fact that they were getting along, but how they seemed to be doing it. He could tell by the look on Ron's face that the youngest Weasley boy was falling under Violet's spell. He wanted to protect her, to look out for her, to take care of her. Harry understood that desire better than anyone in the whole world, and even as he knew that that sacred would always primarily be his and his alone to bear, it would be no bad thing for Vi to have someone else she could depend on in her life. No bad thing at all.

"You two are so lucky having owls," Ron said. "All I've got is Scabbers, and he's worse than useless."

Harry opened one eye as Violet reached out to pet Ron's mangy old rat, which unexpectedly backed away from her touch, hissing and baring his yellow fangs as he did so.

"He's never done that before," Ron said. "Scabbers! Behave yourself! Sorry about this."

"Its okay," Vi said, looking perplexed. "Am I scaring him?"

"No, no, it's his fault really. Stupid git. Fred and George gave me a spell to turn him yellow; I might do it now, serves him right."

Ron got out his hand-me-down wand and pointed it at the ageing rat just as the compartment door slid open and two figures stood framed in the doorway.

One of them was a boy, about Harry's height but a lot plumper especially around the face. There were tears making tracks down his face, and he looked very distressed about something. He seemed to be hiding slightly behind his companion, as if hoping that people wouldn't notice him standing there. It wasn't working too well.

The other was a girl, taller than the boy and thinner too, with long flowing auburn hair and bright hazel eyes, but what struck Harry most was the air of imperiousness that seemed to permeate her. The gaze she was giving the occupants of the compartment was imperious, the way she held herself, standing tall and proud with her hands on her hips was imperious; in fact she reminded Harry of nothing so much as a queen surveying her dominions.

There was silence for a few seconds as the two regarded the three.

"Can we help you?" Violet said after a while.

The new girl sighed, "I don't suppose anybody's seen a toad, my lump of a brother's lost one."

"No, sorry," Harry said. "We've only seen chocolate frogs in here." He waved a box up helpfully, and grinned in what he hoped was a disarming manner at the upset boy and his disdainful sister.

Neither of them seemed amused. The girl said, "I don't know why he wants to find it so badly, if I had a toad I'd loose it as quickly as possible. Still he will insist."

"He was a present!" the boy said.

"A bad present," his sister snapped back at him. She turned her attention back to the compartment occupants, "Is it true that you're Violet Potter, the Girl Who Lived?"

"Yes," Violet said. "Yes I am."

The girl smirked slightly, "Pleased to meet you. I'm Rebecca Longbottom, and this is my baggage Neville."

Harry frowned deeply, this was no way to treat your family to his way of thinking. He would never have dreamt of behaving to Vi this way, and he couldn't believe that this Rebecca could just stand there and insult her brother like that while he was standing right there. It wasn't right. What was the matter with this girl?

"Well, I'd love to stay and chat," Rebecca said insincerely. "But I have to look for Neville's stupid toad. Honestly, he's such a baby, eleven years old and I still have to look after him. Come on, Neville." She marched off down the train corridor, Neville trailing dejectedly at her heels.

Violet waited until she'd gone to say, "She wasn't very nice, was she?"

"I should say not," Harry said. "I'd steer clear of her if I were you."

"She probably doesn't mean it," Ron said. "Fred and George treat me like that all the time."

"Doesn't make it right," Harry said quietly, opening up the Chocolate Frog and putting the Dumbledore card into his pocket before he ate the frog. "Family should look after its own."

"Don't talk to me about families," Ron muttered.

* * *

The countryside sped past as the train rattled along through the meadows and the fields and the forests. A couple of times Vi, for whom long travel was a soporific, almost fell asleep and only woke up just in time. Ron seemed rather amused by this.

Harry guessed that they were about halfway through the journey when they again had visitors, this time four people who entered in such that Harry immediately shot to his feet, and stood between them and his sister.

Mostly it was the presence of the two very big lads at the back who seemed to do more looming than anything else. They had ugly looks on their faces and they were flanking the third member of the party, a very pale boy with white-blonde hair and cold blue eyes, like bodyguards.

Standing at the back, barely visible behind the two big hulks, was a wisp of a girl with a face that was even paler than the boy with the pointed face, so that she seemed to be an almost albino white. Her hair was a very pale blonde, and her eyes were like ice. There was something odd about her though, she seemed lost, as if she didn't quite know where she was or why she was there. She was very still, unusually so, and as she looked at him Harry had the strangest sense that he was being sized up.

"Is it true what they're saying up and down the train," the pale boy said, in a drawling voice that spoke of good breeding and bountiful wealth. "Is Violet Potter here?"

"I am," Violet said nervously, as she stood up to stand beside her brother. "And you are?"

"Draco Malfoy," Draco drawled. "These two are Crabbe and Goyle." It did not escape Harry's notice that he didn't bother to introduce the girl.

Ron sniggered.

"Think my name's funny do you?" Draco said in an aristocratic sneer. "My father says that all Weasleys have red hair, too many children and never enough money. He also says it a disguise the way your family carries on. Associating with muggles and god knows what other trash. You'll learn, Potter, that there are some sorts it doesn't do to get involved with in the wizarding world. I can teach you how to tell which are the right sorts and which the wrong ones, if you'd like." He held out a languid hand to her.

Violet glanced nervously at Harry before she said, "It's very kind of you, but I'm afraid I have to say no. I don't think you and I have the same idea about right and wrong."

Draco flushed, "You're making a mistake, Potter, if you think that the friendship of a Malfoy is worth throwing away for that of a Weasley."

Harry interposed himself between Malfoy and his sister, "You've said your piece, you have her answer, I think you should go."

Draco's blue eyes narrowed, "Or what? Are you going to fight us?"

"Your two heavies there don't frighten me," Harry said. "And neither do you. So if I have to, yes I am going to fight you. And you know what, I'm going to win."

Draco sneered, "Who are you?"

"Harry Potter, Violet's sister, now bog off."

Draco opened his mouth to reply, before Harry heard Dudley's voice coming from behind the Malfoy party, "And who are all these freaks?"

Draco looked scandalised as he and the others turned to look at Dudley, standing behind them in the doorway to the compartment, blocking the way out.

"Ah, Dudley, so you made it after all," Harry said. "What a shame."

"I want a word with you, Harry," Dudley said.

"I know what you want, and frankly you can join the bleeding queue," Harry said, with a glance at Malfoy and his gang.

Dudley growled, "I'm not leaving until I get what I came for, Harry."

"Potter! Who is this idiot and why won't he let me pass?" Draco demanded loudly.

Harry sighed in exasperation, "Malfoy, this is my cousin Dudley, he doesn't like me very much. Dudley this is Draco Malfoy, he doesn't like me either. I don't really care which of you tries to beat me up first so if you could sort it out amongst yourselves that would be much appreciated."

Ron sniggered, and even Vi chuckled at his blasé tone of indifference to the whole lot of them.

Malfoy went an even deeper shade of pink as he rounded on Dudley, "Who are you to call me a freak? What are your family, how many generations of wizards?"

"Wizards, there are none of those freaks in my family," Dudley replied.

"A mudblood? A mudblood dares to call me freak?!" Draco voice was rapidly reaching new pitches of outrage. "You dare insult me? To even speak to me? Crabbe, Goyle, take him outside and show this mudblood some proper respect this instant!"

Without saying a word, Crabbe and Goyle- who were both bigger and heavier than Dudley was- had picked up the Dursley cousin and carted him off out of the compartment, seemingly deaf to his cries of outrage and numb to his attempts to beat them away from him.

"This isn't over, Potter, by any means," Draco said. "The friendship of a Malfoy is not lightly thrown aside. But at the moment, I have more pressing matters. But I'll deal with you later. Lucinda, come!"

As Draco swept away down the corridors, the albino girl Harry took to be Lucinda stayed a moment, her head cocked to one side as she regarded Harry. Finally she said, "You are like me. This may be interesting." Before she too exited the compartment.

Harry shut the compartment door behind the whole lot of them, "Interesting isn't the word." He said to himself.

* * *

_Yes, not only is this a Harry and sister fic, but also a Draco and sister and Neville and sister fic too! Hands up who saw that coming._


	5. Sorting Hat

Chapter 5: Sorting Hat

As the Hogwarts Express came juddering to a halt, Harry, Violet and Ron- all changed into their school robes- joined the throng of other students pushing and shoving their way out of the carriages and out onto the grounds beyond. Harry made sure that Vi didn't get jostled too badly, and forced a way through for his sister and her new friend until they were all able to climb out without too much trouble.

There, in the distance, lights glistening from far away windows, stood the castle of Hogwarts. Its tall spires loomed in the night sky, blocking out the stars. In the shadowy half light of the moon, the stonework took on strange and eerie shapes. The doors were thrown open, shining like a golden maw from the torches inside, offering inviting succour from the night.

"There it is," Vi said breathlessly. "Hogwarts!"

"Hogwarts," Ron agreed.

"It's only a model," said Harry, who was just as impressed as they were but couldn't resist the reference.

Vi gave him a questioning look, "Do you have to spoil the moment, Harry?"

Harry grinned, "Couldn't help myself, won't happen again I promise."

"Firs' years! This way Firs' years! Firs' years this way!"

The biggest man that Harry had ever seen was herding the First years towards a flotilla of little boats waiting on the shores of the lake. Upon the prow of each boat hung a lantern, and the lights played upon the still calm water as the giant of a man gestured towards the boats, and attempted to attract the attention of his charges.

"Come on now, Firs' years this way."

"Who is this bumpkin, Draco?" the speaker was a blonde haired girl with a voice like a horse braying, and Harry looked round to see her hanging off the arm of Draco Malfoy.

"He's some sort of gamekeeper, father says they keep him on out of charity," Draco drawled. "Apparently he spends half the time drunk, and the other half setting his hut on fire when he attempts to do magic."

Harry frowned. He didn't like this Malfoy very much, he was too stuck up by half in Harry's opinion, and any good his attacking Dudley had done was more than counterbalanced by an attitude that made Harry want to smack him. In the gob, for preference.

Violet shrugged, "I suppose that we'd best get a boat."

As she led the way towards one of the little rowing boats- Harry wondered where the oars where, and wished that he'd been able to warm up before rowing all the way across the lake- the enormous man caught sight of the scar peeking out from under Vi's hair and exclaimed, "By heaven, it can't be, Violet Potter!"

Nearby eyes turned to stare at her, and Violet herself went pink, "I wish you hadn't said that."

"Oh, righ'" the big man said gruffly into his black beard. "Sorry. My name's Hagrid, I don't suppose you remember me do yeh? Or you, 'Arry?"

Harry shook his head at once, Violet considered for a moment before she said, "No we don't, I'm sorry."

Hagrid laughed, "Nothing to apologise for, you were only a pair o' littl'uns at the time. I brought you to yer Aunt and Uncle's house is all, the very day that…I shouldn't o' said that."

"It's quite all right," Violet said quickly. "So then, did you know our parents?"

Hagrid nodded dolorously, "Brilliant, both of 'em. Head Boy and Head Girl yeh know. Great people, great loss." He pulled out a handkerchief the size of a small tablecloth and blew his nose loudly.

"Harry and I don't know anything about our parents," Violet said. "We don't even have pictures. Hagrid, would you mind awfully if we came to talk to you about them some time, once we get settled in."

Hagrid perked up considerably, "It would be my pleasure. Now come on, you can ride in the boat wi' me."

* * *

It was a bit of a tight squeeze with Hagrid in the boat, but Harry was relieved that he didn't have to row when the boat started to move off on its own accord. Looking around him, he could see the Longbottoms sharing a boat with a bushy haired girl who seemed to be prattling nervously at the both of them. Rebecca Longbottom caught his eye and rolled her eyes, but Harry studiously did not return the gesture. On the other side of the lake he could see Draco Malfoy, accompanied by his henchmen and his silent sister. Once again Harry wondered what was up with that girl, and why she had said they were alike. There was nothing similar between the two of them. He didn't go around all the time without saying anything for a start. Dudley, Harry took a perverse pleasure in noting, was in a boat all by himself.

_I'd point out the irony that the bully has become the billy-no-mates, but he probably wouldn't appreciate it._

The boat bumped into the far shore of the lake, and Hagrid climbed out laboriously, "See yeh at the feast Violet, and you Harry." He waved to them as he marched away in the direction of the castle, its gleaming lights an open invitation.

"He seems nice," Vi said. "I think he'll be a good friend to us."

"I hope so," Harry said, leaping out of the boat and holding out a hand for his sister. "I hope a lot of people will be."

Violet accepted his helping hand and climbed out, with Ron not far behind.

"It must make a change from what you're used to," Ron said. "Makes a change from what I'm used to, come to that."

A smile played across Harry's lips as he surveyed the magnificent castle before him, "It certainly is a change from our experience." He offered Vi the crook of his arm, "Shall we?"

Violet took his arm, "Let's."

Arm in arm, with Ron following slightly behind, they strolled across the green well tended lawn towards the steps that led up to the main castle gates. About halfway there something caught Harry's eye. It was a large white monument, a column of sorts rising up out of the ground, and topping the column was a statue of a man with a sword raised heroically above his head. Harry walked closer to the monument, until he could see the writing that was written down the sides of the column.

_In Memoriam_

_1972-1981_

_Pro Patria_

It was a war memorial, Harry realised, a testament to the courage to all those who had given their lives in the struggle against Voldemort. It was strange, but it was something he had ever thought to see here. He knew that some schools out in the normal world, the real world, had such things- Smeltings, the school where Dudley would have gone this year, had one- commemorating the wars of the twentieth century; but he had not expected to see one at Hogwarts. But now that he thought about it, he couldn't see why not. After all, the Wizarding World had it's wars too; and its dead to honour.

He looked at the list of names, carved into the white stone: Peter Pettigrew, Gideon Prewett, Fabian Prewett; a lump caught in Harry's throat as he saw the names of James Potter and Lily Potter. He heard Violet give a little sob, and knew that she had read it too.

"They're remembered as heroes," he said, without much conviction in his voice. "At least there's that."

The three of them stared up in silence at it for a moment, before Ron said, "We should probably go." And led them away up across the lawn towards the main doors of the castle.

As they walked, Harry put one arm around his sister's shoulder, "They'd be proud of us Vi, I know they'd be proud of us."

"What for?" Violet asked, as they neared the grey stone steps leading up the great archway.

"Well for, um," Harry looked to Ron for help, but the gangly red haired boy just shrugged. "I don't know. So we'll just have to give them something to be proud of, yeah?"

Violet gave a lopsided smile, "Yeah."

* * *

Their feet echoed on the steps as they passed through the great doors and into the lobby beyond. In front of them where an even larger pair of doors, quartered in four and on each quarter carved a different scene. The first showed four people standing beneath a tall and proud castle, Hogwarts castle the very place in which they stood. The next image showed them taming a dragon, and the third a great battle taking place before the gates of Hogwarts. Only from the last quarter was the castle absent, showing instead the four parting ways, looks of deepest sorrow etched upon their faces as they took leave of their old companions: the noble faced man in armour, whose statue Harry had seen atop the war memorial, an older man bent and stooped with age, a young girl with long hair that flowed behind her, and a more mature woman wearing a veil that covered her face.

Harry found himself wondering why they hadn't chosen to put something a little more welcoming on the doors.

The atrium was filled with other students, all uniformed just as they were and all standing around rather aimlessly while they waited for someone to come and tell them what they were supposed to do next. Harry spotted Dudley standing on his own in the corner, glowering at everyone in sight, and saw the Longbottom twins standing being lectured by the bushy haired girl who he had seen in their boat earlier. Rebecca Longbottom caught his eye and rolled her eyes dramatically, but Harry didn't react; he didn't care for the way Rebecca treated Neville and he wasn't going to pretend to think otherwise.

Then, as he ran his eyes over the crowd, he caught sight of-

"Sally?" Harry dragged Violet along behind him as he forced a way through the crowds of first years towards a girl he had recognised. Somebody he hadn't thought to see here by a long shot and yet here she was. "Sally-Anne Perks, bleedin' heck it is you!"

"Harry? Violet?" Sally-Anne Perks had pale flaxen hair- worn in a single ponytail down the back- and a lot of freckles on her cheeks. She also had bright blue eyes that were wide with amazement. "Oh my god, what are you doing here?"

"We got invites," Harry said. "You're a witch? Why didn't you say anything?"

"Because she didn't know," Violet said. "Just like we didn't."

Sally nodded, grinning madly, "A little man named Professor Flitwick came and told me, we were all so astonished."

"But isn't it wonderful?" Violet said.

Sally spun on one foot, her arms raised as if to embrace all of Hogwarts, "It's brilliant! And I'm so glad that you too are here, at least I know there'll be a couple of friendly faces."

"And one unfriendly one," Harry said. "Dudley's here too."

Sally's face fell, "Oh, well, I suppose it can't be helped can it? At least you two are here as well."

"Attention please," a voice rapped smartly as a stern looking witch came out of the carved oak doors and waited until the eyes of every first year were upon her. "Good evening to each and every one of you. I trust that your journey here was a pleasant one. My name is Professor McGonagall and I will be responsible for seeing to your sorting."

"What's sorting?" Violet whispered.

Ron pushed his way through the press to join them, "Its where they put you in houses, Fred says its some sort of troll wrestling contest. Where did you two go?"

"I saw somebody I recognised," Harry whispered. "Ron this is Sally, an old friend. Sally this is Ron, a new friend."

"The students of Hogwarts are divided between four houses: Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff and Slytherin," Professor McGonagall continued. "Each has its own proud history and noble traditions. When these doors behind me open you will enter the great hall in silence and wait until your names are called. Then you will proceed to the sorting proper."

"Of course this is a waste of time for me," Harry could hear Draco Malfoy drawling. "A flobberworm could tell you which house I'm to be sorted into."

The doors opened to reveal the Great Hall: the largest indoor space Harry and Violet had ever seen, lit by a thousand candles hanging overhead and seemingly open to the very heavens above.

"Someone was telling me its some sort of enchantment," Sally said. "Looks cool, doesn't it?"

"Very," Violet said, looking upwards at where the stars twinkled down upon them.

As one the student body came to a halt behind Professor McGonagall, and all eyes turned to a tattered black hat sitting on a stool in the centre of the hall. On all sides were tables crammed with older students, some of whom looked friendly but others of whom were eyeing the new first years with the hungry expression of wolves gazing upon lambs.

Then hat started singing. Harry didn't pay much attention to what it sang, because he was too caught up by the fact that it was, well, a singing hat for Christ sake. He didn't care if it was magic, some things just weren't right and singing hats were; no, just no.

"When I call your name, place the hat upon your head," Professor McGonagall said. "Abbot, Hannah."

A girl with blonde hair in pig tails walked smartly up to the hat and placed it upon her head.

"Hufflepuff!" called out the hat, and Hannah Abbott sat down at the nearest table to the applause of its present occupants.

"Bones, Susan."

"Hufflepuff!"

And so McGonagall worked through the names of the Bs and Cs, until she came to, "Dursley, Dudley."

Dudley looked rather scared as he made his way toward the Sorting Hat, and Harry actually felt a twinge of pity for him as he put the hat on his head.

"Gryffindor!"

The sound of applause seemed to energise Dudley, and he was swaggering slightly by the time he reached the most distant of the four tables.

Harry didn't really pay attention for a while after that, as the list worked through Finch-Fletchley, Justin (Hufflepuff), Finnigan, Seamus (Gryffindor), Granger, Hermione (Gryffindor) and Goyle, Gregory (Slytherin), until McGonagall's list reached the L's, when he again pricked up his ears and stopped his mind from wandering too far off.

"Longbottom, Neville."

Neville was positively shaking as he walked up to the Sorting Hat in the gaze of all, and used trembling hands to place in on his head.

The hat was silent. No words escaped it. Harry wondered if it was a hat that deliberated as well as sang. For something that looked like it had been brought for a pound at Oxfam it was certainly a multitalented piece of tat.

Eventually the mouth slit at the brim of the hat opened wide and yelled "Gryffindor."

"I feel sorry for him," Harry said conversationally, as Neville forgot to take the hat off before joining his new house.

"Why?" Violet asked.

"Being in the same house as Dudley," Harry said, as though it were obvious.

"Longbottom, Rebecca."

Neville's auburn haired sister could not have been more different than her brother. For one thing she exuded confidence as she walked down the aisle between the tables, and even smirked slightly as she put the hat on top her head. Again though, there was a delay while the hat seemed to consider its decision.

"Ravenclaw!"

Rebecca looked inordinately pleased with herself as she walked back to join the house opposite the Hufflepuffs. _She's happy to be not be in the same house as her brother,_ Harry realised. _What sort of person acts like that?_

The Malfoys, when the time came for them to be sorted, where similarly split. Draco was placed in Slytherin- as he had expected, if the look on his face was anything to go by- but strange, silent Lucinda was likewise placed in Ravenclaw. A few people, mostly Draco's friends, looked rather surprised about this, and Harry thought he caught a glimpse of sadness across Lucinda's face, but then it was gone as swiftly as it had come; replaced by her usual unreadable expression, and Harry found himself wondering if he had ever seen it at all.

"Perks, Sally-Anne."

"Good luck Sally," Harry whispered, as Sally made her way toward the Sorting Hat.

"Hufflepuff!"

Sally flashed a quick grin at him as she took her seat.

"Potter, Harry."

Harry heard a few people whispering, thought he saw a couple of glances directed at him, but paid it no mind. Vi was the special one, not him, and everyone knew it. He sat down calmly on the stool and plonked the singing hat upon his head.

_Hmm,_ a voice in his head said. _Aren't you an interesting one, mister Potter?_

Harry hesitated. _Your that damned hat aren't you?_

_Indeed._

_Well what's so interesting about me?_

Harry got the impression that the Sorting Hat was mentally chuckling, _One of the things that makes my task so difficult at times is the diffuse nature of the young mind. Eleven year olds have so much going on in their heads, often at such a superficial level, that it is hard to find a dominant theme. But you; so single minded, so purposeful. A man takes care of his family,_

_If he doesn't, he isn't any kind of a man at all._ Harry finished. _However he has to do it, whatever he has to do._

_But are you really a man? You are, after all, a mere boy._

_And as soon as our dad comes home I'll gladly let him take over. _Harry thought sarcastically. _Except I doubt that'll happen because if what everyone says is true he's been dead for the past eleven years, and for better or worse I'm the only man our Vi's got, so I'll have to do. And I will take care of her, you can bank on it._

_You will remain loyal to her, no matter what?_

_Of course I will,_ Harry thought, affronted. _We're family._

_Well then, there's really only one place for you to go,_ thought the Sorting Hat, "Hufflepuff!"

As Harry put the hat back on its stool, Sally applauded louder than anybody else.

"I'm glad we're in the same house, Harry," she said as he sat down, slight traces of blush appearing on her cheeks and accentuating her dimples.

"Me too," Harry said, sitting down on the Hufflepuff table next to her. "Evening all."

Hannah Abbot, pink faced and blonde with her hair in pigtails, leaned forward from where she sat opposite Harry, "Is the Girl Who Lived your sister then?"

"Yup," Harry said, turning to watch Vi walk down the middle of the hall towards the Sorting Hat. Justin Finch-Fletchley was having the nature of the Girl Who Lived explained to him in hushed whispers by Ernie Macmillan.

"That must be hard," Susan Bones, pale and with long black hair, said from where she sat on the other side of Sally-Anne.

Harry didn't have a clue what she was on about, and frankly wasn't much interested. He was more focussed on watching his sister as she sat down and placed the Sorting Hat gently onto her head.

_All Ron's family ended up in the same house,_ Harry thought. _So we should be all right._

"Gryffindor!" yelled the Sorting Hat.

"What?" Harry leapt up so fast that he knocked the table with his legs, spilling goblets and rattling plates up and down. Ignoring cries of alarm or indignation Harry strode firmly back towards that damned hat, his hands knotting into fists as he saw the panic and confusion in Violet's eyes. "Now listen here you charity shop piece of rubbish, let me tell you-"

"Mr Potter," Professor McGonagall interposed herself between Harry and the hat, moving very quickly for someone who looked to be in her sixties. "Kindly return to your seat."

"Not until that ruddy thing admits it lied!" Harry snapped.

"Potter, the Sorting Hat's decision is final,"

"Then I'll light it up until it screams," Harry said, attempting to push past her. "No way I'm going to let it get away with this."

"Mr Potter this is no way for a Hogwarts student to behave," McGonagall said.

"Sorry to disappoint you," Harry succeeded in getting around her and rushed toward Vi, putting one arm around her as he looked up to where Professor Dumbledore sat at the high seat of the staff table, looking down on him with those piercing blue eyes. "Come on, sir. She's my sister."

A hook nosed man with a lot of greasy black hair leaned in and whispered something in Professor Dumbledore's ear. Of the other faces Harry saw on the table, they were looking down on him with a mixture of anger, confusion or embarrassment. Harry felt as though he was in the dock, and the jury was against him.

"Are they going to split us up?" Violet whispered.

Harry stroked her shoulder, "I hope not."

Professor Dumbledore stared down at him, his face inscrutable.

"Please sir," Harry said, hoping that his slight personal connection to the Headmaster might be just enough to tip the scale. "Sir, you have to understand. You know us."

"I'm sorry Harry," at least Professor Dumbledore had the good grace to be ashamed, looking down at his plate unable to meet the gaze of the Potter twins. "It is as Professor McGonagall has said. The Sorting Hat's decision is final."

The Great Hall was all silence. Every eye was focussed upon them, the Girl Who Lived and her minutes-older brother. Harry closed his eyes, knowing that he had lost, and silently cursed that in the space of a few seconds all his happiness had been ripped away. For how could he be happy now that they had taken his sister away from him.

"Harry?" Violet whispered.

She needed comfort, he realised, she needed reassurance, so Harry gave her the reassuring smile, the everything-is-going-to-be-alright smile, and brushed some of her dark hair away from her forehead, "We'll still see each other, all over the place. It'll be okay, they'll never keep us apart for long."

"I don't know if I can-"

"Hey, you're the Girl Who Lived," Harry said. "You can do anything."

Violet nodded uncertainly, "I love you, Harry."

"Love you too, Sis."

Harry watched as Violet walked slowly towards the Gryffindor table, thunderous applause long delayed finally erupting as the Weasley Twins began to chant, "We got Potter! The important one!"

Harry wasn't looking at the Weasley twins though, he was looking at Dudley, smirking like all his Christmases had come at once. Glancing at Vi with a sly smile, Dudley turned to Harry and waved mockingly at him.

Harry glowered back, and vowed that if Dudley tried to take advantage of Violet being without him he'd come to regret it.

Stalking back to the Hufflepuff table, Harry paused to whisper to the Sorting Hat, "I won't forget this." Before sitting down at the place he had left. He didn't pay much attention to the rest of the Sorting, save to hope that Ron would look after Vi in Gryffindor, and when the feast appeared he didn't pay it much notice either. He suddenly found that he hadn't much of an appetite. He ate mechanically, because he had to, but he took no pleasure in it and every chance he good he stole a glance at the Gryffindor table to see how Vi was getting on.

"You know," a soft voice drawled from Harry's right. "I don't believe there's been a sorting with quite so much drama in quite a while."

Harry turned to see a blond boy with an upturned nose sitting a few places down from him, "What's it to you?"

"Zacharias Smith, since you didn't ask," Zacharias said pointedly. "And as for your question, I just wonder why all the melodrama was necessary."

"She's my sister," Harry said. "She needs me."

"I'm sure she can manage," Susan said, her tone scathing.

Sally shook her head, "Harry's always taken care of Violet, always. He used to fight people who picked on her, and eventually he stopped all of them and there weren't any bullies left any more because they were all so afraid of him."

"So you've known them both before," Hannah asked eagerly.

Sally nodded, "I don't know much about Violet being the Girl Who Lived, but as far as I'm concerned Harry's the hero!" She blushed even harder than before and for some reason had to look away from Harry altogether.

Susan raised one dark eyebrow, "A hero?"

"I never said that," Harry said quickly. "I just did what any man would do for his family. As far as I'm concerned Vi's the special one, I just do what I have to do the best way I can."

"What you have to?" Zacharias asked.

"A man takes care of his family," Harry said. "If he doesn't, then he isn't any kind of a man at all."

He noticed that the other Hufflepuff first years were looking at him like he was mad, "What?"

"You do realise that you're only eleven years old," asked Zacharias.

"Yes, well, Violet doesn't have a dad so I'm the next best thing. I'm there for her. I've always been there for her. Someone has to be."

"Uh-huh," Zacharias nodded noncommittally. "So who's there for you then?"

"No one," Harry said. "Because I don't need anyone." _All I need is for her to need me._

* * *

"So you mean to tell me," bush haired Hermione Granger was building to a tone of high indignation, speaking more slowly than her usual quick fire pace as she drew herself up to her full height. "Than you have allowed yourself to become absolutely dependent on that thuggish brother of yours."

"Harry's not a thug," Violet said. "He just looks after me."

"What do you need looking after from here?" asked Dean Thomas.

"And more to the point, you and Ron have both told me how ready he was to start fights," Hermione said. "I think that makes him a thug and a bully."

"Now hang on, both of those times other people started the trouble," Ron said.

"That doesn't make it right," Hermione said. "Nor does it excuse refusing to allow his sister to stand on her own two feet as she ought to do."

"Who are you to tell her what she ought to be doing?" Ron said angrily.

"It would be better for her than just tagging along at Harry's heels!" Hermione snapped. "You don't see Parvati Patil mooning after her twin sister do you?"

"Well good for her, but it doesn't mean everyone has to be as calm as them," Neville spoke up unexpectedly. "My sister always looked after me as well. She didn't like it, or enjoy it, but she did it anyway and I'm grateful. So I think you should stop getting at Violet and Harry for doing the same thing."

Vi smiled gratefully at him, "Thank you."

"My pleasure," Neville said. "Its strange being without them isn't it? But Rebecca looks to be enjoying herself."

They looked over at the Ravenclaw table, where Rebecca Longbottom was engaged in deep conversation with Padma Patil.

"More than Harry is," Violet said, glancing to where her brother sat moodily on the Hufflepuff table, ignoring everyone else around him.

"I hope he's all right," Neville said. "He seemed like a good lad to me."

"He's the best," Violet said, and as she said it her scar began to ache and throb and pound away at her like a drum, and she gave a low groan as she clutched her head.

Instantly both Neville and Ron were anxiously asking what was the matter, and then the pain was gone as quickly as it had come.

"I don't know. My scar just started hurting," Violet looked up at the staff table to see the greasy haired professor scowling at her. "Who is that?"

"Oh, that's Professor Snape," Percy said idly. "Potions Master, but everyone knows it's Dark Arts he really fancies."

Violet bit her lip, and wondered what had happened to make him dislike her already. And whether he could possibly have made her scar suddenly hurt.

_I wish that I could talk to Harry about this._


	6. First Night, First Day

Chapter 6: First Night, First Day

Albus Dumbledore was not surprised by the insistent knocking upon the door of his office. Indeed he had been expecting it. He would have been surprised rather if it had not come. Resettling his glasses before they fell off his nose, Dumbledore leaned backwards in his majestic chair and said in a calm, polite voice, "Come in, Harry."

The door opened, and Harry came in. Dumbledore found himself taken aback a little by the mutinous, verging upon surly, expression on the boy's face. It was one he was all too familiar with from Harry's father, James had often worn a similar expression while suffering under some perceived slight or injustice, such as a detention for bullying Severus or raising some new kind of hell in the school corridors. And the look in those eyes, those deep green eyes, such a look had been very familiar in the eyes of Lily Evans when she was on the warpath about some cause or other. It was odd, to see the look in the eyes and the expression upon the face when those whose face and eyes they where were dead and gone the both of them. So strange, so sad, for a moment Dumbledore lost himself to nostalgia before he forced his mind back to the here and now, and to the very disgruntled Harry James Potter standing before him without a trace of nervousness or hesitation in confronting the Headmaster on his first day at school.

"Why?" Harry demanded, his voice hard and cold. Dumbledore steeled himself to show no emotion, but in truth he was gratified that he knew Harry as well as he did. He had been expecting that Harry would first demand explanation then action from him, and he had not been mistaken. His plan would proceed much better if he could accurately predict Harry's responses, especially under the somewhat changed circumstances.

Dumbledore gave a deep sigh and said conversationally, "Harry, I understand how you must feel but one must observe the proprieties of our relationship." It wouldn't do to become too informal with the boy, not yet at least. It might make others- and every Harry himself- suspicious.

"Sorry sir, I forgot," Harry said, rattling the words off in rapidfire fashion so that they almost came together as one word. "Why, sir? I think I'm owed an explanation."

That was bold. Dumbledore smiled inwardly as he contemplated what a marvellous job Arabella had clearly done with Harry. Arabella and the environment in which he had grown up.

"Harry it is not for me, Headmaster though I am, to question the decisions of such an ancient and powerful artefact as the Sorting Hat. For many centuries now it has sorted the students of this school without interference, and without issue."

"Perhaps it's getting senile with age," Harry said. "Piece of tat."

"Harry," Dumbledore admonished sternly. "I am afraid that attitude will not do. You will learn that the wizarding world is built upon ancient traditions and institutions, many of them passed down, like the Sorting Hat, from the days of the Founders of Hogwarts themselves. You must learn to respect those traditions and the honour their age and great antiquity gives them if you are to dwell in this world with us."

"I'm not having some hat telling me that I'm not brave enough to protect my sister," Harry said firmly.

Dumbledore paused for a moment, before he allowed himself a slight smile and said, "Harry, courage is not the exclusive quality of Gryffindors. It is merely their most defining characteristic. There have been brave Hufflepuffs, Ravenclaws and, yes, even the occasional brave Slytherin." Dumbledore thought of Severus, and the lonely, hazardous road upon which he walked, before forcing his thoughts back to Harry and the matter at hand. "That the sorting hate placed you in Hufflepuff is not a reflection upon your courage in any way."

"Maybe," Harry said. "But how am I supposed to look after my sister when we aren't even in the same house? I mean we'll hardly see one another."

"If you are half as resourceful as your father was Harry, I do not doubt that you will find a way," Dumbledore said, smiling benevolently down upon Harry. He decided at this point to take something of a risk. If Harry thought he was prying, or testing him in some way, he might grow suspicious and that was the last thing that Dumbledore desired, but now seemed as good a time as any to discover just how firm the foundations of Harry's duty where, and Dumbledore was confident that he could manage it without arousing undue suspicions on Harry's point.

"If I may ask a question Harry, many if not most children of your age would be glad to be free of the burden of caring for a sibling."

"Most people have a dad to take care of things like that," Harry said. "Vi doesn't she's only got me, and I have to do the best I can for her. Especially now."

Dumbledore raised one white eyebrow, "Whatever do you mean?"

Harry hesitated, slipping his hands into his pockets and looking down at the floor, "Finding out about our parents, what happened. They loved our Vi, they tried to take care of her, they wanted to protect her so badly they died for her. And now its my turn, and I couldn't bear it if I failed after all they'd done before me. I couldn't bear it one bit. Besides, all those other kids you where talking about, they probably have other things to be getting on with, I don't. I've only got Vi. She's all that matters and she's all I care about. So I suppose the best answer to your question is: I'm not most children my age."

Dumbledore nodded in a sage manner. While the part about failing the memories of Lily and James was unexpected, it was not so strange now that he considered it. Naturally, the shining examples of his parents before him would stir Harry to greater efforts and diligence, and that was only to the good. Yes, Dumbledore was satisfied, Harry was everything that could be hoped for in the circumstances. Arabella Figg had laid the foundations and laid them well, now Dumbledore himself would fashion the statue to place upon them.

"I am afraid I must decline your request Harry," Dumbledore said. "I shall not over rule the sorting hat. Indeed I have no power to do so even if I would. You must do the best you can in the situation in which you find yourself, as well all must in our lives." Yes, this would be a good lesson for the boy, he could not always rely on circumstances being perfectly arranged to his satisfaction, and Dumbledore was interested to see how he would carry out his duty in these new more straitened circumstances.

Harry didn't look pleased, but he also seemed to be mustering all the grace he could as he nodded briskly, "Thank you sir."

"You may go now, Harry," Dumbledore said.

As Harry left his office, Dumbledore leaned back in his chair and smiled, feeling that he had every right to be pleased with himself. Who would not be, when thus far his plan was going so well?

His thoughts drifted, across the vast implacable abyss of time, to another family without a father, to an older brother who had been forced to assume the parental mantle before he had had a chance to grow into it. How resentment had coloured that young man's treatment of those who where depending upon him, until great tragedy resulted. Was that why he was doing this? Did he think that, perhaps by making Harry into the perfect guardian he could expunge his failure with Arianna? Dumbledore shook his head, though he had long since attained that particular brand of foolishness known only to the phenomenally intelligent he was not yet such a fool as that. His mistakes could never be undone, his youthful failings could never be redeemed save by him alone. And yet, he could not deny that he was glad that Harry was set firmly on a different path. Perhaps this time the results would be better. For Harry's soul, and for the wizarding world.

"Don't fail her, Harry," Dumbledore whispered. "If you do, you will never be free of your sorrow."

* * *

The Gryffindor Common room was the sort of place that invited camaraderie and good cheer. The fire was warm, the sofas where soft and the red and gold colours where cosy and welcoming. Casual observers would have found it strange, then, to see that the place was filled with a frigid silence that seemed to oppress all present.

Violet sat in the centre of one large sofa, with Ron sitting on one side of her, almost teetering on its edge as he leaned forward, as if he where challenging anyone who wished to harm her to get past him. It was a manner she was familiar with from her brother, but to see it done by someone who had been a complete stranger to her until today was, well it felt so warm and strange in Violet's stomach. No one had ever defended her like this apart from Harry before. On her right sat a nervous seeming Neville, looking down at his feet as the awkward silence continued.

Hermione Granger stood in front of the fire, silhouetted by its glare, with her arms folded across her chest as she regard Vi with an imperious gaze. Violet held her peace, she wasn't going to start a row with someone on her first night at school. If Hermione had something to say she could come right out and say it.

And then there was Dudley, sitting in a big armchair a little way away from her sofa, watching her with what could only be described as malicious glee written all over his face.

It was he who broke the silence as he said, still wearing a look resembling the cat that had just gotten the proverbial cream, "So, Violet, how does it feel to be away from big bad Harry for the first time, eh?"

Violet stiffened, and tried to control the hands she had suddenly found where beginning to shake, _I won't let him see me afraid. Harry never let Dudley see him afraid and neither will I._

"I'm a bit nervous," she admitted, casting a shy smile around the room. "That's why I'm so glad that you've all been so welcoming to me."

"We're not horrible enough to do anything else, are we?" Dean said.

"Yeah, what sort of people would make the Girl Who Lived feel left out after all she's done for us," Seamus leaned down and patted Violet on the shoulder. "Anything you need Violet, you only have to ask me."

"Hey," Ron said. "If there's any helping to be done it'll done by me, all right?"

Seamus raised an amused eyebrow, "I don't see your name on her, Weasley."

"Quite, she has her brother's name written all over her," Hermione said briskly.

Ron swung back round to face the bushy haired girl, "And what's that supposed to mean?"

"That she has admitted to being her brother's little slave girl and it isn't right, and it's a wonder that nobody else can see it!" Hermione snapped.

"That's not fair," Ron said. "Her brother's just looked out for her, the same way me and Fred and George always looked out for Ginny when she was growing up, and the way we'll look out for her when she comes to school next year. It's a big brother thing, and you don't understand if you haven't got brothers or sisters yourself."

"He's right," Neville said softly, looking up from his careful study of his shoes. "It worked the other way around for me, but he's right."

"They're twins!" Hermione said. "She's the same age as him, she shouldn't need looking after."

"My sister's done her best for me," Neville pointed out.

"Both your sister and her brother would have done a lot better letting you stand on your own, in my opinion," Hermione rejoined snippily.

"Now wait a minute," Violet rose to her feet, keeping her hands rigidly by her sides so that people didn't see how nervous she was by the shaking of her hands. Hermione could think what she liked, but Violet wasn't going to spend all night listening to Harry getting slagged off. "My brother cares a lot about me, and because he cares he wanted to do everything he could to make sure that I was all right. And he only did all that because he wanted what was best for me, which you seem to think is a bad thing. And if you're so opposed to people caring for one another, and helping one another then…then I pity you!"

Hermione gasped, and looked as if she was momentarily lost for words when Dudley's greedy little laugh broke through, disturbing the air with the rough, snorting sound, "This is going to be so much fun."

"Watch it, Dursley," Ron warned.

"Yeah, leave it out, okay?" Dean said.

Dudley regarded Dean Thomas with absolute disdain, his lip curling into a sneer, "Why don't you shut up and go back to the jungle, and leave-"

Violet felt herself pushed forward as Dean hurled himself over the sofa and right at Dudley. Dudley's chair was overturned as the two rolled on the floor, grappling with one another. Hermione's hands where clasped over her mouth, Seamus' hands where clenched into fists, while Lavender and Parvati looked utterly clueless as to what the two boys were fighting over.

"Hey, no fighting, stop that at once," Percy Weasley ran down the stairs from the Fifth year common room. "And you lot, don't just stand there."

Seamus moved to pull Dean off, while Percy and Ron together held Dudley back from retaliating.

"What's going on?" Percy demanded.

"Dudley just called Dean," Hermione took a deep breath before she continued. "Dudley just called Dean a-"

"He called him the muggle equivalent of a mudblood, in so many words," Seamus said. Violet didn't know what a mudblood was, but it must have been the wizarding equivalent of the sort of remark Dudley had just made. After all, he had family on both the muggle and wizarding sides, so he ought to know.

"I see," Percy said in tones of cold disapproval. "Detention, Dursley, and Professor McGonnagall shall hear all about this."

Dudley scowled, but didn't say anything.

"I'm not sleeping in the same room with him!" Dean spat. "I've put up with enough of that in my life." Seamus nodded his support.

"That isn't for you to decide," Percy said, his voice sympathetic but authoritative. "Professor McGonnagall shall decide what is to be done."

Violet bit her lip, and leaned in slightly closer to Hermione to whisper in the girls ear, "I'm sorry if I offended you, by what I said earlier."

A haughty expression crossed Hermione's face, "We must all do what we think best, mustn't we?"

As she stalked off up the stairs toward the first year girls dorm, Vi closed her eyes and hoped that she hadn't just made another enemy.

* * *

Harry stood in front of a still life painting in the lower reaches of the castle, the entrance to the Hufflepuff common room, wondered if there was any way he could persuade the wretched thing to let him in. There were disadvantages, he conceded, to storming off to see the Headmaster without waiting to get the password first.

The portrait was a slightly muddy looking oil painting of a large country vista, of rolling fields and hedgerows, with green fields in the distance. The English countryside, according to those who didn't have to live there. A badger stood in the centre of the painting, sniffing the air for danger.

"I don't suppose there's anything that I could bribe you with?" Harry said.

"Absolutely not," the badger said. "I would never sink to such low depths. The very thought. No password, no admittance." The badger had a very deep, slightly pompous voice that suggested a very high opinion of himself.

Harry considered what the password might be, but the presence of the talking badger in front of him kept disrupting his thoughts, "Is the password…Mr Mole?"

"No," Badger said.

"Ratty?"

"No."

"Toad of Toad Hall?" Harry said.

"That was a completely different badger, I'll have you know," said Badger. "And I would never choose passwords from a children's book for muggles."

"You're a talking badger, what do you expect me to think of?" Harry demanded.

"There are talking badgers in other books, Narnia for instance," said the scholarly and well-read badger.

"Ah, so it's a Narnia password is it? Trufflehunter." Harry said.

The badger rolled its eyes, "You know I'm tempted to let you in so that you'll stop making such ridiculous guesses."

At that moment the door swung open, something that seemed to surprise the badger in the painting as much as anyone, and Sally-Anne Perks stood in the entranceway, "Do you want to come in Harry?"

"Thanks Sally," Harry said as he made his way in, and Sally shut the door behind them both.

"The password's diligence, just so you know," Sally said quietly from behind him.

Harry nodded, as he looked around the Hufflepuff common room. _In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit,_ Harry thought as he gazed around the domelike structure of the room, the little barrel doors and the whole thing reminiscent of something dug out of a hillside, _another poor devil who got done by a wizard_. It wasn't a bad place, Harry supposed, decorated in yellow, with lots of fluffy armchairs and sofas clustered around a large fireplace. It could probably be quite cosy, as a matter of fact. However, at the moment it seemed very cold, frigid even.

That might have had something to do with the fact that it was absolutely empty apart from the two of them.

"Everyone else has gone to bed," Sally said.

Harry looked at her, her freckled cheeks slightly pink, "You shouldn't have waited up for me by yourself Sally."

"I know you wouldn't be able to get in otherwise," Sally said. "So, what did Professor Dumbledore say?"

"He said no," Harry said shortly. "Said I should have more respect for tradition than to argue with the sorting hat."

For a moment Harry thought he saw an expression of happiness cross Sally's face, before it faded so quickly that he had to wonder whether he had imagined it.

"What are you going to do?" Sally asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

"I'll think of something," Harry said. _It's just a matter of thinking of a way to protect something you can't actually get close to._ "Though I doubt I'll think of any ideas this late at night."

"I thought we might stay up for a bit and, you know, talk about things," Sally said.

Harry yawned, "No thanks Sally, I'm a bit tired tonight. Maybe another time."

Sally's cheeks became a little bit pinker, and she bowed her head slightly, "Yeah, maybe."

"Goodnight Sally," Harry said, opening the door which led down the First Year boys dorm.

"Harry?" Sally said suddenly, causing Harry to pause, "I, I'm glad we're in the same house together."

Harry paused, choosing his words before answering, "If things where a bit different Sally, I reckon I would be too."

* * *

Justin Finch-Fletchley leaned back against the wall of the Great Hall and watched the Gryffindor first years at breakfast the next morning.

Not to the point of prying of course, not to the extent of a certain grey faced brother who stared at his sister as if the intensity of his gaze was the only thing keeping her alive. Truth to tell, it was a little pathetic to watch him, barely picking at his food and missing half the time because he was too busy keeping an eye on the Gryffindors, but Justin wasn't going to try and talk Harry out of it. He would give Harry all the help he could, if Harry asked for it. Loyalty, after all, was a knife that cut both ways. You had to be willing to chip in before you could draw out, and Harry's account in the back of goodwill was fast becoming overdrawn- it only required the briefest glance at the annoyed look of Susan Bones' face to work that one out. Honestly, the girl looked as though she was about to snap. For the rest of his new housemates, Zacharias Smith looked faintly amused, and Sally upset, while Ernie and Hannah seemed completely oblivious as they chattered amongst themselves.

All the same, Justin would cast the occasional glance over at the Gryffindor table, if only to see what it was that Harry found so fascinating.

What he saw was something that would not have seemed out of place in some sort of costume drama: the queen being fawned upon by her courtiers. Violet Potter sat near the centre of the table, looking rather down- though not to the extent that Harry seemed for all that she sometimes shot anxious glances his way- while all around her the male members of the Gryffindor first year thronged, mixed in with some of the older students. Justin supposed he shouldn't be too surprised; take a cute, sweet girl, vulnerable and alone, and throw in the tragedy and mystique of the girl who lived and you had not only instant huggability but also an appeal to chivalry that was dulcineic in its irresistibility. No wonder they couldn't keep away. The youngest of the red-headed clan was pressing steaming hot sausages and rashers of bacon upon the girl, while a sandy haired boy whose name Justin vaguely recalled as Finnigan was filling up her goblet with pumpkin juice. Two identical redheads where speaking so quickly their mouths where almost a blur, and from the occasional smile that tugged at the corners of Violet's mouth Justin guessed that they where telling jokes in an effort to cheer her up. More boys thronged around, dancing their attentions upon the Girl Who Lived while their female housemates looked on in a mixture of jealousy and disbelief. One in particular, that bushy haired girl whose name escaped him for the moment, was looking incredibly put out by the whole business. Justin couldn't honestly say he blamed her.

But what struck Justin most was Harry and Violet's cousin. To call him the overweight spectre at the feast would have been an accurate metaphor, but also an insult to all the far more literal spectres at the feast who would have been shamed by the comparison. Nevertheless, there he sat, all alone at the end of the table, glancing occasionally Violet's way. And then a very ugly look spread across his face, a look that spoke of the cunning of the unusually stupid, and of a plan to make someone's life a misery.

Justin's dark eyebrows rose, _maybe Harry does have reason to be concerned after all._

Professor Sprout walked down the table, handing out the timetables with the help of the prefects. Zacharias scanned his and groaned slightly, "I can't believe they're doing this to us. Eat up Harry, Potions first thing isn't something that can be faced on an empty stomach."

"Potions?" Hannah Abbott let out a frightened eep. Justin noticed that Ernie had paled considerably. Even Harry looked puzzled by this behaviour.

"I say is that bad?" Justin said.

"In a word, yes," Zacharias said.

Hannah was nodding furiously, "The rumours say he's a terror!"

"Well, we'll just have to wait and see, won't we?" Justin said, trying to put as brave a face on things as possible as breakfast finished and they went back to their common room to prepare for their first lesson, and their seemingly monstrous first teacher.

* * *

The Potions Dungeon was charmless, cold dark stone and dead things preserved in jars, a harsh and forbidding place for, if Harry's brief sightings of him were correct, a harsh and forbidding man. Harry hadn't met Professor Snape properly yet, but what he'd seen of the man suggested that if he ever tried to smile the result would be quite horrific. As it was he swept around the place dressed in black with a face that alternated between an angry scowl or a contemptuous sneer, neither of which was very conducive to an air of pleasantness. It was said that Snape hated all the students save for a select few who were his favourites, and though Harry could believe it from looking at him it almost made him wonder why such a man had gone into teaching in the first place.

The Hufflepuffs waited outside the dungeon for both their professor and the Ravenclaws, who arrived a few moments later. The Ravenclaw first years exchanged pleasant nods with the Hufflepuffs, but immediately afterwards retired inwards on themselves, and seemed to pretend that the other house weren't there. For a moment the fey, pale blonde Lucinda Malfoy looked as though she might be an exception as she stood and stared at Harry with her icy eyes wide with curiosity. But then she too drifted over to the side of the corridor occupied by her own house.

_What's so awful about loyalty that all these other houses think they have a right to look down on us?_ Harry thought, as Rebecca Longbottom began telling a story to amuse her housemates._ Any right tosspot can have a brain between his ears but it takes real strength of character to be fair, honest, just and loyal. _

The door to the dungeon was swept open and Professor Snape stood in the doorway, surveying them all down his long nose with something close to disgust in his face and his dark eyes, "Enter." he said tersely, and swept away again back inside.

The class followed him in with trepidation, splitting up amongst the tables along house lines.

"Good morning," Snape said, sounding anything but pleased to see them, "I am Professor Severus Snape, Potions Master of this school, and it will be my dubious pleasure to instruct you in the scientific art of potion making. Be warned, there will be no wand waving or incantation shouting in this class, and many, I daresay most, of you," his eyes swept around the room, "will show yourselves unsuited for the discipline; regardless of your aptitude or not in other areas of this school. Potion making is an art that few wizards have the skill to achieve competency in, let alone master, yet if you do possess the skill then I can teach you how to brew fame, bottle glory, or put a stopper in death." Snape's voice was quiet, and though tinged with disdain he had the class hanging off his every word, "That being said, I will admit right now that I do not expect great things from any of you."

"Potter!" Snape barked, his eyes lighting up.

Harry leapt to his feet, "Yes sir?"

"What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

"Erm, don't know sir."

Snape's lip curled in a derisive sneer, "So you lack knowledge without even the compensation of fame to make up for it. What a pity. Again, where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?"

"In the store cupboard sir." Harry couldn't resist, and immediately saw that he had made a mistake as Snape's face clouded with anger, "Sorry sir, just a joke, I'd look in a goat's stomach sir." Harry was fortunate to be able to answer that one right.

"Five points from Hufflepuff for cheek Potter, but one point for actually demonstrating that you possess some knowledge." Snape said, "You will learn, all of you, that I have no sense of humour. And in this classroom, neither do you. Potter, what is the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane?"

"Don't know sir." Harry admitted.

"One out of three Potter, very poor," Snape sniffed, "but no better than I expected from you." he swept away and began to stalk the rest of the class room, "powdered root of asphodel-"

"And just what does that mean, sir?" Harry demanded, "You don't know me, how do you know what to expect?"

Zacharias looked horrified, Justin looked pained, Ernie was looking away and Sally Anne and Hannah were like rabbits caught in headlights.

Snape swept back towards Harry, "I mean, Potter, that your sainted father was similarly inept at this most subtle discipline, and I expected that you would inherit his hopelessness. And circumstances have proven me correct."

_Oh no you didn't._ Harry was about to take a step towards Snape, his mouth framing a retort, when Ernie grabbed hold of his arm and held him fast.

"Don't." Ernie's lips silently framed the plea.

"You have something to say, Potter?" Snape asked.

As a concession to his housemates, Harry fought to keep his words and tone civil, "I think you've got a right to slag me off for not performing sir, but it's another thing to go after a man who isn't around to defend himself. It's low sir, cowardly."

The Ravenclaws gasped; obviously they couldn't believe that someone would actually answer back to the most feared teacher in the school. All except Lucinda, who merely cocked her head to one side but otherwise looked perfectly unfazed by the development.

"I will not be lectured by an eleven year old Potter, ten points from Hufflepuff." Snape snapped, turning away and waving his wand soundlessly at the board behind his desk. A list of ingredients appeared on it, "You will begin brewing the boil cure potion, do remember to take the cauldron off the fire before adding the porcupine quils or you will be coming back in detention to clean up the mess. Begin!"

Hannah and Justin partnered up, as did Susan and Zacharias, leaving Harry with Ernie and a rather pleased looking Sally. While Ernie went to collect the ingredients, Harry glared at Snape's back, _I am going to make you eat your words, Snape, every last single one of them. I don't care what it takes, or how hard it is, by the end of this year I'll have gotten so good at this that even you will have to acknowledge it. And from what you've just said I don't reckon you'll like that too much. Tough. Serves you bleeding right for insulting my family like that._

Motivated by his desire to get up Snape's long nose by revealing unexpected potions talent, Harry worked like a fiend in that double period. It helped a lot that Ernie was damn good at potions himself, probably the best in the class, but Harry took on as much of the work as he could and concentrated more than he had in any other lesson in an effort to make sure that everything was done perfectly. The result was that not only did Harry, Sally and Ernie produce a perfect boil cure potion at the end of the lesson, but Ernie also had time to stop Justin and Hannah from adding the porcupine quills without taking their potion off the fire.

At the end of the lesson, Snape swept along each of their cauldrons in turn, offering a few comments to each pair, most of them negative, "Corner and Boot, you may or may not have the intelligence of Ravenclaws but it is clear to me that you do not have the potion making capability of grindylows. Perhaps if you spent more time studying and less time on your hair, Brocklehurst, you might have produced a halfway competent potion." When he came to the Malfoy girl however he just stopped, staring at her for a moment while she looked straight back at him without a trace of emotion.

"Malfoy," he said, his voice cold but without the sarcastic edge it had held previously.

"Sir," she replied, her voice as cold as his.

For a moment all was stillness and silence, before Snape ripped his gaze away from her, "Acceptable." He spat, before moving on to the Hufflepuffs.

Snape looked from the boil cure potion produced by Harry, Ernie and Sally to Hannah and Justin's effort.

"I am aware of what house you are," Snape said, "but I will not have incompetent students being carried by their more capable fellows, not in my class. Henceforth Macmillan if I catch you giving another pair help again you shall receive detention, and next class you shall partner Bones and Smith while Potter and Miss Perks shall work alone."

_Oh good,_ Harry thought, _the quicker you stop being able to say that someone else is doing all the work for me, the more fun this will be._

As they left the potions dungeon Harry checked his timetable, and was vexed to discover that not until Wednesday would he have a reunion with Vi in Herbology. Another two days, he wasn't sure that he could hold out until then.

_Come on, Harry, back straight. Don't let them see you ground down. Private vow: By the time you next see Vi, you will have a plan worked out. And a decent one too. _

And with that in mind, Harry's mind was half-elsewhere as he followed the herd to their next lesson. How did you protect something that you couldn't get close to, certainly not very often. There had to be a way, he just had to find it.

* * *

Violet lay on her stomach in the middle of the common room, a textbook open in front of her and a roll of parchment spread out alongside it. Her quill was poised in the air as she collected her thoughts, her legs waving in the air as she began to write out McGonnagall's Transfiguration essay. She may not have been as much of a natural at it as Hermione, but she was confident that she could produce something halfway decent for her first homework.

Ron grunted as he came into the common room, slamming his book down on the table with far too much force and scowling as he began to read the relevant passage.

"Something wrong, ickle Ronniekins?" Fred asked, looking up from his discussion with George and Lee.

"Yeah, is the fact that you're actually expected to work at school coming as a bit of a shock?" George chimed in.

"Be fair lads, you two never seem to do any," Lee grinned.

Fred and George nodded to one another, "He's got a point there."

"But Ronnie doesn't have our natural talent."

"Shut up," Ron said.

"Ooh, temper temper," Fred said.

"It's not fair, getting homework on the first day. I mean how is that fair?"

"Well I think it's perfectly simple," Hermione said. "I'm halfway finished already."

"Brilliant," Ron said, in a tone that suggested Hermione's best option would be to find someone who cared.

"Do you want some help, Ron?" Violet asked, gathering up her book and parchment and quill and going to sit next to him on the sofa. "What bit are you having trouble with?"

Ron's scowl deepened, "All of it."

"It isn't so hard, once you get a feel for it," Violet said, picking up Ron's book. "Now you see where it says…" and she proceeded to not exactly give him the answers, but certainly to show him the way to reach them, intermittently pausing to add to her own essay.

"Hmph," Hermione said as they both scribbled away on their rolls of parchment. "I think that he's meant to do his homework on his own."

Violet was having just about all that she could stand of Hermione's attitude, "As you said." She replied stiffly. "We must all do as we think best."

* * *

"What's the matter Harry, is something the matter?" Sally asked, placing an anxious hand upon Harry's arm.

Harry frowned. The Hufflepuff common room was filled with life and energy. Justin, Ernie and Hannah where swapping chocolate frog cards amongst themselves, while Zacharias and Susan where discussing something called quidditch. Members of the older years were engaged in practically everything, from work to mock duelling. So why then, was Sally wasting her time on him when she could be enjoying herself?

"Why are you here Sally," Harry asked her. "Why are you wasting your time on me."

Sally blushed for a moment, but looked rather sad at the same time, as if she couldn't meet his gaze, "If you'd rather I left you alone, then-"

"No, I didn't mean it like that. I'm sorry if it came out wrong," Harry said. "I just meant…everyone else seems to have given up on my is all." He gestured across the common room with one hand.

Sally said, "You and I are mates Harry, that won't change so easily."

Harry grinned, "Yeah, you're right, we're mates and that means that…" his voice trailed off, as the seed of an idea began to sprout and bloom in his mind, and as it bloomed the pollen of yet more ideas where attracted to it, until the pieces of a plan began to fall into place. "Yes! Yes! I've got it, thank you Sally your ruddy marvellous! Yes!" He leapt off the yellow sofa and pumped the air with his fist.

"Got what, Harry?" Sally said in a small voice. He noticed that Susan and Zacharias where watching him like he was mad.

"Mates! If I can't get close to Vi there are other people who can, I'll work through them. That's stage one, anyway, the temporary measure. Stage two, oh yes, stage two its brilliant. I've been neglecting all this nifty magic we've all got. There has to be some way you can cast protect spells on people. I'll have to go and have a read and find out, to the Library!"

"Harry, it's night time curfew," Sally pointed out.

Harry considered this point for a moment, before he pointed exaggeratedly at the doors, "To the library first thing tomorrow!"

Sally chuckled, "That's a little better."


	7. Please Drop It

Chapter 7: Please Drop It

Harry growled as he slammed shut Alenko's _Elemental Defensive Measures_, "Useless. Bloody Useless."

The other Hufflepuff first years paid him no notice. Harry didn't particularly care. Zacharias did take a moment to look up and say, "Maybe you'd be better served doing your transfiguration essay. You know, the one that's due tomorrow?"

"I'll do it in the morning before lessons," Harry said. "This is more important."

"Of course, because schoolwork is such a nuisance when you're at school isn't it?" Zacharias said acidly, and then lowered his head again to continue scribbling his essay.

_Why is it,_ Harry thought,_ that these books are full of ways to cast protective charms on yourself- Alenko talks about a barrier which sounds very cool- but nothing about how to put them on other people. I mean what's the point in that? I don't need protection. Somebody's going to need protection from me though if I don't find a solution to this mess. _

Harry reluctantly put the book to one side. He wasn't going to find any answers in there that was certain. And that still left the question of whether, even if he did find anything, he would have the power and skill to actually enact the spells that they proscribed.

Last year at school, little Mark Evans had tried to teach Harry how to play D and D. Harry hadn't been very good at it- he'd maxed out on combat stats and ended up with a dwarf fighter who was invincible in battle and good for nothing outside of it- but from what he hazily remembered of the game he wasn't even a level one in Mage at the moment.

Basically, even if he did find a spell that would protect Vi he probably wouldn't be able to cast it right. He might- horror of horrors- even do something to her in the process of mucking it up. Harry couldn't bear that, couldn't let that happen.

But there was only one way he was going to prevent it, and it wasn't by sitting here wishing to improve.

Squaring his shoulders, Harry reached for his parchment and quill and started on the transfiguration essay.

_Who knows, maybe I'll learn how to transfigure rock into a badass guardian Golem to protect Vi from her enemies. _

Harry's eyes glazed over as he imagined turning a simple rock into a dual-sword wielding rock-hard warrior ready to deal out death and destruction the moment someone so much as looked at his sister funny. Now learning how to do that would be awesome.

"Are you going to work or daydream?" Susan demanded.

"All right all right," Harry said. "Don't get your knickers in a twist, god."

_What's the matter with these people?_

Transfiguration passed without, alas, teaching Harry how to transfigure a rock into an all fighting all ass-kicking knight protector for Violet, but that didn't bother him nearly as much as it should have done because after transfiguration it was Herbology, and that was the one subject which Hufflepuff and Gryffindor took together.

Harry ran out from the castle and down the grassy slope towards the greenhouse, scanning the area anxiously for any sign of her. Come on, come on, he wanted to have some time before lessons started, come on. His eyes flickered across the verdant verges, the slightly grubby panes of glass covering the greenhouses, back to the castle behind him. Come on, where was she?

"Harry!"

Harry felt his mouth spreading in a glorious smile as he turned towards the source of his name and saw Vi running towards him with her arms spread wide. He ran to meet her, his back slamming up and down against his side as he did so, the whole pace of the world seeming to slow as he and his sister ran towards one another until they enfolded each other in their arms, spinning around and round as they buried their heads in each others shoulders.

"I've missed you," Harry said. "God you've no idea how much I've missed you."

"As much as I've missed you?" Vi said. "Can you believe how long it's been?"

They released one another, and Harry pushed some of Vi's dark hair out of her face, "How have you been? You doing all right up in that tower?"

"I'm okay," Vi said, with a brave smile. "The people in Gryffindor are very good, and kind. But," she blinked rapidly, and water began to gather in the corners of her eyes. "I still miss you." She repeated.

"We'll find a way to spend more time together," Harry promised. "You still coming to Hagrid's this afternoon?"

"Yeah," Vi said. "I'll meet you at the gates?"

"Course," Harry said. He grinned nervously. "All week without seeing you and I've no idea what to say now."

"Why don't you kiss her, it seems to be what this has all been leading up to," Dudley growled moodily.

Harry looked upwards to see the assembled fist years of Gryffindor and Hufflepuff standing on the grassy hillock just above himself and his sister, looking down with a mixture of bemusement, pleasure, annoyance or indifference. Dudley was definitely in the annoyed category.

"You're still here are you?" Harry said.

"Not for much longer if I have anything to say about it," Dean muttered.

Harry raised one eyebrow, "Now this sounds fascinating."

"Dudley said, Dudley was very rude to Dean, about the colour of his skin," Violet murmured.

Harry chuckled grimly, "Just when you where starting to worry me Dudders, I should have known I could rely on your capacity to shoot yourself in the foot."

Dudley bared his teeth in a snarl, "One of these days Potter, I'm going to-"

"Save it for someone who believes you, why don't you," Harry said. "Now go away, I'm tired of looking at you."

Dudley scowled, and tramped down the hill towards the greenhouse. Harry was still smiling as he turned his attention back to his sister, "I enjoyed that. It felt just like old times."

Violet giggled, and Hermione let out a loud tsk of disapproval.

"So what have you been up to?" Harry said.

"Don't you think we ought to be getting down to the lesson?" Zacharias said.

"Probably," Justin said. "We'll be late in a sec."

Harry sighed with frustration, "First time seeing you in a week and I can't even get you to myself for a few minutes."

"We can partner up," Violet said, slipping her arm into her brother's. "Come on, we can talk as we're working."

And so they walked, arm in arm, down to the greenhouse while the rest of the two houses followed in their wake, and the Potters paid no attention at all to the opinions of others.

And so Harry and Violet talked their way through most of Herbology, comparing notes on their experiences so far, and how each was getting on: they shared their gripes about the unfairness of Professor Snape, who seemed unable to decide whether he hated Vi or wanted to coddle her (Harry couldn't work out where the Potions professor was coming from with that), and about how hard or easy the various lessons where. Vi seemed to be ahead of Harry in most respects, but that didn't annoy or worry Harry. It made him proud.

_Our girl's coming into her own. She's embracing her destiny. Soon she won't have any need of me at all. But that day hasn't come quite yet._

Harry was careful to get a handle on how Vi stood in relation to the other Gryffindor first years. She was close to Ron, on good terms with Seamus and Dean, walked a fine line around Hermione whereby the two were distantly polite, and so-so with Lavender and Parvati, who kept themselves to themselves. Harry frowned a little at that, he didn't want all the other girls to gang up on his sister, but overall he was glad that the lads were looking out for her and that she had allies she could depend on to stand between her and Dudley. Things could have been a lot worse.

It was a wrench when the lesson came to an end, but at least they would be seeing each other that afternoon.

"Don't worry kid, you'll always have Paris," Zacharias remarked as Harry and Vi hugged.

Harry, who contrary to Zacharias' expectations had gotten the reference, gave him a freezing glare by way of response. The smirk was wiped right off his face.

* * *

That afternoon, and Harry stood in front of the War Memorial that stood before the front gates. The white obelisk gleamed in the hesitant afternoon sunshine, and the glow that came from it seemed only to emphasise the names that where carved into the marble: Pettigrew, Prewett, Potter.

"Hey Mum, Hey Dad," Harry said uncertainly, torn between the ridiculousness of imagining that they could hear him and the feeling that if there was anywhere where he could speak to his parents and they would hear, this place was it. "So, we made it. Me and Vi, the pair of us.

"I'm sorry that I didn't get into Gryffindor along with our Vi, to look after, to be close to her, to keep her safe. I know I did wrong in that, and you're probably disappointed that I haven't grown up to be the man you wanted me to be; but I'd like you to know that I haven't given up. I'm going to make this work; I'm going to keep our Vi safe no matter what obstacles in my way. I'm going to make sure that she's safe and happy so that she can shine bright for the entire world to see.

"I'll make it work, you'll see. So, I suppose what I'm really trying to say is," Harry frowned, and swallowed deeply. "Just don't give up on me yet either, okay? A man takes care of his family, no matter what house he's put in."

Harry heard Violet coming, and looked around just as he walked up beside him and joined him in gazing up at their parents names carved into the white stone. Potter, James T. Potter, Lily E. Silently, Violet slipped one hand into Harry's and squeezed it tight.

"Do you think it was worth it," Violet said. "What they died for?"

Harry turned, and kissed his sister's hair, "They died for you, our Vi. Of course it was worth it."

Violet lowered her eyes, "I wish I was as sure as you Harry."

"Hey," Harry said. "Don't be like that. I'd have done exactly the same thing."

That didn't seem to exactly bring the desired reassurance, so Harry suggested that they leave the grim monument behind and visit Hagrid. The expansive gamekeeper proved the perfect antidote for any dour feelings that the visit to the monument had brought on as he regaled the Potter twins with stories about their parents time at Hogwarts in such a way that soon had them both laughing.

"Ah yes, he was a wag your dad was Violet," Hagrid said. "And as fer yer Mum well, she didn' have an enemy in the whole school. I remember the way she used ter sneak out into the forest to visit the Unicorns, she did. Course they loved her, but then so did everyone. Especially yer dad."

"When did they fall in love?" Violet asked, smiling brightly. "Was it love at first sight."

"I wouldn't say that, no," Hagrid said carefully. "But they loved each other very much by…by the end."

The conversation meandered onto more recent topics: Vi's first week in school, and how she had found it. Hagrid put up quite a vigorous defence of Professor Snape's surly attitude, but seemed rather reticent on the subject of where his favourable interpretation came from. But Harry, as he leaned back in his seat warming his hands around Hagrid's cup of tea, was inclined to let the elusive answers to such questions be. The gamekeeper was warm and welcoming and doted upon Violet, and that was all that they had any right to expect.

Vi leaned down and petted the big boarhound fang on the head, something the large dog seemed to like judging by the way that raised his head with his tongue hanging out and started making appreciative noises before graduating to leaping up into Vi's lap and licking her face.

"That'll do, Fang, get off her. Down boy," Hagrid said, but with the amusement obvious in his voice. "You'll ruin her clothes with yer muddy paws, y'will. He likes you though Vi, never seen him take such a likin' to someone before."

"Your dog knows quality when he sees it," Harry said. "Smells it, whatever."

Vi giggled as she scratched Fang's ears as he nestled back down in his basket lined with newspaper cuttings. Abruptly, she stopped scratching and pulled out one of the tatty looking clippings and placed it on the table.

Harry sat up, "What have you got there our Vi?"

"It's a report about a break in at Gringotts, on the-" Violet paused for a moment. "Harry this happened the day that we went there with Professor Dumbledore."

Harry's mind was instantly filled with visions of Gringotts' ornate lobby being invaded by cockneys in balaclavas wielding sawn-off shotguns and yelling obscenities as the staff and customers scrambled to the floor in terror, "Well thank god they waited until we were finished, eh?" As amusing as it was to imagine Professor Dumbledore, whose power and skill appeared to be legendary, facing off against a gang of blaggers Harry was very glad that the images remained solely in his head where Vi could not be caught in the crossfire.

"And it also says," Violet went on. "That the vault was emptied that very day, so the thief got away empty handed. Harry, don't you remember Professor Dumbledore emptied out a vault while he was with us."

Harry frowned, "Yeah, but that doesn't mean anything. I mean it's the biggest bank in the world there are bound to be a few empty vaults knocking about the place."

"Emptied on the same day," Violet pressed.

"It might happen,"

"Right yeh are Harry," Hagrid said, looking distinctly uncomfortable. "Like yer brother says Violet, its just a coincidence, that's all. It's not as though Professor Dumbledore is up to something after all. Not as though he emptied the vault because he was worried about how secure it was or nothin a- oh dear."

Vi smiled triumphantly as her eyes gleamed with excitement, "What was in the vault, what was so important that it needed to be hidden somewhere extra secure?"

Hagrid cleared his throat, "Well its been lovely havin' you both here, but I think it's high time that you got back to school now. Sure yeh've got lots of homework to do or something."

Violet was disappointed, but Hagrid was adamant, and so Vi left, with Harry trailing just a little behind her.

"I'll catch you up in a minute, okay?" Harry as Violet began to walk back up to the castle, while Harry lingered in Hagrid's doorway.

With Vi out of earshot, Harry leaned against the door frame of Hagrid's hut, "Hagrid?"

"I'm sorry Harry, but I'm a little bit busy at the moment," Hagrid said, despite the fact that he hadn't moved since dismissing Violet.

Harry chuckled, "Don't worry Hagrid, I'm not interested in any break in. In fact I couldn't care less about Gringotts, the vault or the package, though it worries me that it interests Vi. Anyway, I want to ask you about something different, something for Violet. Something important."

"Alright Harry, what is it?" Hagrid said, less terse now but still wary sounding.

"Could you put me in touch with any of mum and dad's old friends; from when they where at school and stuff?"

"Eh," Hagrid seemed surprised for a moment, before his usual friendly disposition returned. "Well, of course I could Harry, but why would you want to know?"

"Well, Vi doesn't have anything to remember our parents by, and I wondered if some of the people who knew them best might have anything that they'd be willing to donate; as a Christmas present for my sister."

Hagrid nodded approvingly, "I'm sure I know some people who'd gladly help yeh Harry. Let's see there's Remus Lupin, and…well, tell yeh what why don't I send yeh an owl with a list when I've had time to think of them all, Harry?"

Harry grinned, "Cheers Hagrid, I'd really appreciate it. I'll see you around."

"Come back any time Harry," Hagrid called out as Harry left, and jogged up the grounds to catch up with his sister.

"Did you get it," Violet asked him.

"Er, get what?" Harry said.

"The name of whatever it was Professor Dumbledore took out of the bank," Vi said, as if it was obvious.

"Oh, no I didn't ask," Harry said.

"Oh well, never mind," Violet said. "Ooh, I bet it has something to do with the closed off corridor on the third floor, whatever it is must be hidden there."

"You mean the _do not enter on pain of a horrific and painful death corridor_?" Harry said.

"Don't you think its intriguing," Violet said.

"No, I think it sounds bloody dangerous and out of our league," Harry said. "I am sure that whatever is going on Professor Dumbledore has it well in hand. I mean he's obviously one step ahead of the thief anyway."

"Maybe," Vi said. "But aren't you in the least bit curious as to what it is that they're hiding in that corridor."

"No," Harry said.

Violet frowned, "Why not?"

"Why not," Harry's voice rose as he pointed as the marble war memorial. "That's why not! This world is much bigger than us, Vi, bigger than anything I ever imagined before a few months ago. Lets say that you do investigate all this, find out what's going on, find the thief. Do you think that whoever it is just going to say 'Curtains, I would have gotten away with it if it weren't for you meddling kids?' or do you think he's going to pull out his wand and kill you stone dead just like mum and dad?

I couldn't bear that Vi, I couldn't bear to lose you. And the truth is, the truth is I'm not sure I can protect you in this place as it is without going intentionally looking for danger."

Harry bowed his head, and laid his hands on Violet's shoulders, "Please Vi, I want you to promise me that you'll forget about all this. For both our sakes."

Harry looked back up into Violet's green eyes, wide with a mixture of fear and confusion. Then, after a moment, Violet embraced her brother in a hug.

"All right Harry. If it means that much to you, I'll let it go. And don't worry, I've never doubted that you would always be able to take care of me, no matter what."

It began to rain outside as the twins made their way back into the castle.


End file.
